Library sale forced me to choose between two old cookbooks last weekend

I had $5 to spend and picked 'The Joy of Cooking' from 1975 over a Betty Crocker from 1983 because the Joy had handwritten notes in the margins from the original owner. Now I'm making all these weird gelatin salads from the 70s that are actually kinda good - has anyone else found old cookbook scribbles that turned out to be hidden gems?

2 comments

2 Comments

karen_martin7d ago

Oh, a gelatin salad fan in the wild. That's a bold claim. Those handwritten notes are usually someone's desperate attempts to make canned fruit and lime Jell-O taste like actual food.

rivershah6d ago

...actually that's not quite right about the handwritten notes being just desperate attempts. I've got a 1964 Good Housekeeping cookbook where someone wrote "add bacon, trust me" next to a clam chowder recipe and it was the best damn chowder I've ever made. The Joy of Cooking from 75 is a solid pick too, those gelatin salads get a bad rap but if you swap out the canned fruit for fresh and cut back on the sugar they're actually pretty refreshing in summer. I think people forget that home cooks back then were just experimenting like we do now, they just had different ingredients to work with.