Grandma's Cookbook-

When my Grandmother passed away, I became the recipient of several of her cookbooks-
She kept every recipe she ever tried, complete with notes on what she had to change, how good it was, and if she didn't like it, she left it written in, but X'd it over so she wouldn't accidentally rewrite and reuse the same bad recipe. She made notes in the margin about who it was from, when she got it, and if they got it somewhere else. She also sometimes noted who they'd eaten it with, or at what occasion. To me it's a like a little chronicling of her life and involvement in various groups and activities. I was pleased to see some recipes she'd gotten from my maternal Grandma in there too- She passed away when I was only 10, so it was kind of neat to stumble across them.
In the earliest recipe book of hers that I have found so far-, she wrote in her brother Vincent's school book- an old hard cover thing, tied with strings it's so old. In it there are a variety of articles written down for school- how to deal with cabbage worms,how to store eggs, that type of thing.
And then, treasure! Some are recipes handed down to them from her grandmother! So, my great great Grandmothers' recipes, some with notes stating that she in turn got them from her aunt or mother.
Pretty fun in my opinion cause suddenly I'm holding a bit of hopefully tasty family history in my hand in the form of recipes from the mid-late 1800's. My grandmother spent all her life residing in the Manitoulin and Greater Sudbury area, so her earliest recipes used readily available items to rural northern ontario. Through the war years the recipes take on a little more stark quality, as ingredients and money became more scarce-
In the interest of playing nice and sharing, and 'cause let's face it- I'm not likely going to be coming to you live on the food network any time soon-I'll be posting recipes here for people to peruse.
Please keep in mind that I haven't tried the majority of these recipes of course. I wish I had the time to though and someday I hope to work my way through them all, one bite at a time. Er, I mean a bit.