My Mother's Recipe Box
by Rachel Paxton - rachel@creativehomemaking.com
Remember the days when cookbooks weren't so readily available,
and you or your mother relied on only one or two different
cookbooks for
cooking all of your family's meals? I still have my
mother's old
cookbooks, as well as my grandmother's. Each one is worn
from age and
use--if you flip through the tattered pages it is obvious which
recipes
were turned to time and time again. These cookbooks will
always number
among my most precious treasures.
When our mothers wanted to try new recipes, they most likely
didn't run out and buy new cookbooks. They often didn't
have the
extra money to spend, and often there weren't very many to choose
from.
So where did they get new recipes? From each other.
When I was a child I remember my mother exchanging recipe
cards with friends and relatives and bringing them home and
filing them away
in her recipe box. I always loved going through her recipes
(although she often got mad at me for getting them all out of
order!)
All the years while I was learning how to cook I went through
her recipe
box time and time again, pulling out my favorite recipes and
preparing
them again and again.
Seeing who the recipes were from made them all the more
special. I also love looking back at all the recipe cards I
prepared
myself while I was in 4-H and spent much of my time learning how
to
cook. I still prepare many of the recipes I used back
then. To this
day, all I have to do is open my recipe card box, and I am
instantly
transported back in time.
My mother hasn't exchanged recipe cards with anyone in more
than 20 years. I have very few of my own (although I hope
to
inherit hers someday!) But even to this day there is no
better place to
find favorite family recipes than in my mother's recipe
box.
Twenty years from now, I look forward to going through my recipe box
with my own daughter, telling her stories about where all of my
different recipes came from.
Copyright 2000. Originally published at Suite 101.
Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer, mom, and
owner of four home and family web sites. For complete resources
for the Christian home, visit her web site
at http://www.Christian-Parent.com.
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