A fascinating item in The Recipe Writer’s Handbook inspired this writing about the evolution of cookbooks and cookbook authors. As can be guessed, most of the few early cookbooks were written by men (from the late 4th to 14th centuries).

Around 1390, for example, a chef of King Richard II is credited with writing the first English cookbook (cookery book) called Forme of Cury. This book was actually a vellum scroll of recipes that included how to use exotic spices in everyday cooking. (The word cury is the Middle English word for cookery, and not a spice blend, I’m told.)

As literacy grew in the upper classes, women starting writing cookbooks and other running-the-household instructional books. These served to record the rich variety of food, tastes, cooking methods, eating habits, and even the local dialects. Some of the notable women cookbook authors through modern times have included:

Hannah Wolley (c. 1622-1674)
In 1661, she became the first female author to try and make money from writing and publishing a cookbook with her The Queen-Like Closet, or Rich Cabinet, which included easy-to-follow recipes. Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps you are the family member other family members contact when they have a question about Aunt Betty’s apple crisp or Uncle Johnny’s barbecue sauce.  You are the one with custom recipe cards and have vowed to make your own family cookbook with the beloved family recipes.

Does that make you the family food historian? Well, perhaps.

Review our 10 point family food historian character profile and see if you fall into the family food historian category: Read the rest of this entry »

There are as many reasons to make a cookbook as there are people. The 10 reasons to make a cookbook listed below are some of the top ones our readers and cookbook software users have told us:

1. Everybody loves my food.
Friends tell me I’m a great cook and that they would like to have my recipes. If I type it up once, I can print it a hundred times!

2. I need to get organized.
I’m tired of looking through 10 cookbooks, 5 drawers, a recipe card box, and under the refrigerator for all my recipes. Read the rest of this entry »

I like to use the brand names for ingredients in my cookbook recipes. Not because they are necessarily any better than the generic brands, but because they often produce a better recipe result, and therefore, make family recipes more consistent.  Twenty years from now, if someone makes one of the recipes from your family cookbook, will they really get the same taste from a “cherry flavored gelatin” as they do from cherry Jell-O?

For example, if I want to make Tres Leches Cake, I will always use a certain brand name product (Eagle Brand) because I like the taste better. Believe me, I have experimented with assorted sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and whipped cream for the Tres Leches Cake ingredients, and there is a certain combination that is unbeatable together (and guess what, they all are the brand name products). Read the rest of this entry »

Last February I got a nice handwritten letter from a friend’s grandson who was studying the history and geography of major cities in the United States. He asked most politely if I would send him a postcard from my town so he could pin it up on the classroom bulletin board with postcards other students were getting from around the country.

This was such a brilliant class project that I couldn’t help but admire the teacher for coaching the students so well, and also for providing a wonderful activity and lesson that will be remembered long after the school year ends. Read the rest of this entry »

Chocolate banana split cake

Two of my favorite flavors are chocolate and banana. I don’t usually eat them together, but one day last week I had a desire for a nice slice of chocolate cake. There were two bananas on the counter (sorry, banana trees are for monkeys), so I thought why not make that Chocolate Banana Split Cake my cousin, Jean Brown Craft Batts, raved about a few years ago.

It just so happened that the local ladies club was having a dessert social that day and had invited members to bring a favorite sweet to share. Thank goodness! I really didn’t want to have to eat the whole Chocolate Banana Split Cake by myself. Read the rest of this entry »

The big question I always face when trying to decide which cooking oil to buy is “How does it taste?” I don’t know about you, but I hesitate to experiment with something that can be pretty pricey per ounce (especially if I end up not liking it and then am stuck with a bottle of unused cooking oil for years).

At the grocery store I will stare at dozens of cooking oils with fancy labels from a multitude of international countries (Italy, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Spain), or from some domestic sources (California, Oregon, Texas, Arizona).  They all look good, but weeding them out is sometimes too challenging.  Which one to dip bread … which one to use for salad dressing … which one to smear on my cast iron skillet? Read the rest of this entry »

Many of my family recipes were tucked away in cardboard shoeboxes on well-worn recipe cards until I developed my cookbook software. The margins of the recipe cards were often decorated with cryptic comments and sage advice regarding the taste, texture, and preparation techniques that gave the recipe its unique place in the repertoire of our family’s cooks.

Such comments are wonderful insights from the past for anyone trying to recreate the family recipe, so make sure you include these observations and advice when creating your own cookbook. (In my Matilda’s Fantastic Cookbook Software, scanned recipe cards can be included as a photo within the recipe page, thus retaining the “flavor” of the original.) Read the rest of this entry »

Soon there will be traditional tailgating parties and potlucks to contend with as the crisp air of autumn beckons neighbors and strangers to gather for one common cause — football.

If you are lucky enough to volunteer to bring a dessert, you can’t go wrong with these delicious but easy mini-tarts that get their quickness from ready-made vanilla wafers. I don’t know where the recipe originated, but here are two slightly different versions that are sure to please hungry game-goers, game-watchers, or other gathering crowds. Read the rest of this entry »

We got a few comments offline about the blog entry I did last week about kitchen gadgets. I’d like to revisit that topic just a bit, because I apparently gave off the impression that I am a packrat for kitchen gadgets.

Not True!  I am a minimalist regarding kitchen gadgets. The fewer the better in my opinion. Ever since I saw the Electric Paper Towel roller back in the ‘60s, I have resolved to have as few of those alleged work saver kitchen gadgets as possible. Read the rest of this entry »

I once won a Scrabble® contest using the word Quince. My Scrabble opponent was one of those smarty-pants, know-everything types who smirked whenever he scored points.

I was ready for his challenge of quince, though.  I knew that “my” word quince was valid because I had seen it as one of the 31-Flavors.  As it turned out, he didn’t challenge the word. Darn, I had so looked forward to proving I was right for once.

Well, those days are faint memories, so today we are going to challenge my readers and cookbook software users to come up with their most creative original recipe using quince.  We know quince is popular as a jelly or jam; that it can be used in tarts and stews; and that the apple of Adam’s and Eve’s temptation could have been a quince instead (it apparently is an ancient fruit). Read the rest of this entry »

Remember those first few days of the new school year when teachers would ask students to write an essay on “How I Spent My Summer Vacation?”

Although kids these days may not be interested in such an assignment (due to its lack of texting possibilities), they might enjoy helping create a family cookbook based on all the places they went and all the food they ate during their summer vacation break (done on the computer using cookbook software, of course). Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes I scare myself.
Does that ever happen to you?

Sometimes I will come up with an idea that I think is absolutely brilliant. Read the rest of this entry »

Did you hear that Colonel Harlan Sanders’ handwritten secret recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken got temporarily moved out of corporate headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky with much fanfare?  Makes me wonder if that publicity stunt not only triggered KFC sales, but also increased curiosity about the original formula he developed in 1939-40.

It was enough to get me thinking about his secret recipe, so I expect others have the same interest, too. And, I wonder what ingredients were actually available during that time period. Read the rest of this entry »

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What type of cook are you? Are you a great cook? Average? A studied gourmet?

I’ve always been fascinated by my fellow cooks, and their different cooking personalities and cooking likes and dislikes. Why does one prefer using packaged convenience foods, and another is compelled to use unprocessed foods in their most natural condition?

The answer lies in a study done some years back by the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University.  The lab was profiling “nutritional gatekeepers” in American homes–those people who have a powerful influence on the tastes and eating habits of their families. (You know, the ones who buy fruit instead of cookies, or suggest eating salad instead of fries.) These nutritional gatekeepers could be Dads, Grandmothers, older children, or caregivers, but mostly they are Mothers, who continue to do the food shopping and preparation in 80% of the surveyed homes, according to Lab research.

Headed by Dr. Brian Wansink, a pioneer in food psychology, the study also revealed that most great domestic cooks can be grouped in one of five cooking personality types. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in the 1960s, Alfred Hitchcock had a famous dinner party for an intimate gathering of his Hollywood friends.  As an experiment (and most likely a joke), he asked his chef to prepare all blue foods: blue martinis, blue meat, blue mashed potatoes, and blue peas.

He was fascinated with human psychology, and the fact that blue is not a natural color for food. He wanted to see if blue food would turn people off.  It did. Many of his guests became a bit queasy and some couldn’t even eat, if I remember the story right. Read the rest of this entry »

My dear friend Ruth has a way of irritating me like no other person can. I’m always the uptight one, but in contrast she is so mellow that she doesn’t even mind if I talk about her to strangers on the Web. That’s probably why we get along; the yin and yang of our 50-year friendship.

But now I think Ruth has overstepped my limits. She has volunteered me to make a family cookbook using my cookbook software for someone she met while waiting for her Fluffy at the dog groomers.  Can you imagine that? Read the rest of this entry »

Without a doubt, cheese is one of my favorite foods. Not just for recipes in family cookbooks, mind you; how about just eating it straight, with maybe a little cracker or two?

Yes, I love cheese. That may not be politically correct to admit in this allegedly fat-free conscious society (where zero body fat is an absurd goal for tweens and teens alike), but I bet there are many closet cheese eaters out there looking for the perfect hit of creamy Brie, sharp cheddar, or a pungent hard white. Read the rest of this entry »

Whenever I pass the candy counter in the supermarket and see Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, I always remember our dear friends in Australia. They love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but can’t get them there.

Last year, I sent them a whole box full of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, hoping they would arrive without mishap, melting or other misfortune. They did! (My customs tag was a bit odd, but the bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in all sizes survived.) Read the rest of this entry »

As the summer winds down, some of my cookbook software blog readers may already be experiencing a different kind of “back to school” syndrome. The one where the kids are back in school, and you suddenly have time for those “someday” projects that have been swirling around in your head (you did write them down, didn’t you?).
 
With all the new-found time on your hands, maybe you can jump start your “make cookbook” someday project by inviting some friends over for a cookbook making party.  A cookbook making party can be very entertaining, but without a lot of fuss.  Read the rest of this entry »

We received an inquiry this week from Mara Ruffino, who asks about copyrights and creating cookbooks. My answer is worth sharing with all of you since last month there was quite an online controversy between a blog and a food website that alleged one of its copyrighted recipes was being compromised. Here is Mara’s question:

Hi Matilda,
I am thinking about writing a cookbook and eventually publish it (not just in the family). I have been collecting recipes for a long time; some of them are my own and some of them “have no author,” meaning that I don’t know where I got them from. Therefore, I’m left wondering: how do copyrights work with cookbook recipes?
Thanks,
Mara Read the rest of this entry »