Old Family Recipies that are not Really Old Family Recipies!

[aaronatthedoublef]

Another interesting article from Gastro Obscura. I really need to subscribe to it.

They are collecting recipes that have been handed down through generations that are or may not be something specific to the family. I suspect this is true of at least one recipe I received from my mom.

Of course I have recipes that I have developed that look similar - surprisingly similar - to things I have seen other places. My oatmeal cookies are very close to a bunch of other oatmeal cookies but it's something I put together over the years for two different people for whom I was baking. And that's just one example.

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[Mike Nolan]

I can definitely relate to this!

My mother-in-law, Catherine Hillegass, edited the cookbook put out for the Nebraska Centennial in 1965, "The Nebraska Centennial First Ladies Cookbook". (For those who don't know, my father-in-law, Cliff Hillegass, was the founder of Cliffs Notes. He started an imprint called Centennial Press to publish this book and a few others including one featuring Czech recipes.)

This book contains recipes from a number of Governor's wives around the country, plus many recipes sent in by long-time Nebraskans.

My wife fondly recalls how her mother tested every recipe included in the book, and a number that didn't make the grade. They received 8 very similar recipes for one fried dough dish, from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, and published all 8! (It's called 'knee patches' in at least one form.)

I will say, though, that I've looked at a lot of chocolate chip cookie recipes over the years, but never found one that was identical to the one my mother used to make, which I still think is the best cookie recipe ever for dipping in milk.

[aaronatthedoublef]

This reminded me of an old episode of "Friends" where Monica was trying to figure out Phoebe's secret family chocolate chip cookie recipe. Phoebe finally relented and told her and it was some weird pronunciation of "Toll House" cookies!

[Joan Simpson]

Mike interesting about your father in law,I just googled and read about it.

[BakerAunt]

No one in my family ever claimed "an old family recipe," except for a great-grandmother's potato salad, which is made with mashed potatoes, chopped onion and celery, hard boiled eggs, dill pickles, mayonnaise, and mustard. My mother never used a recipe on it, so my sister has worked up one that she thinks is pretty close. I've not seen anything like it.

Oops: it also had chopped iceberg lettuce

My mother was clear that her pumpkin pie recipe came off of a can of evaporated milk. I've changed the recipe over the years, so I can now claim it is truly my own. One thing that surprises me with this article is that so many of these cooks and bakers did not do any experimenting but followed the recipe as given. Even with recipes that I really like, I find myself introducing variations.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

My mother made a potato salad where she poured oil and vinegar over diced cooked potatoes while the potatoes were still hot, so the oil and vinegar soaked in. She'd add hard boiled egg, celery, onion and celery seed. No mustard or mayo.

Not sure if this is similar to some of the German potato salad recipes or not, as it is served cold, not hot.

I have discovered if you follow the instructions for cooking potatoes in McGee (soak the diced potatoes in 130-140 degree water for 20 minutes first), the potatoes don't get soggy.

My grandmother seldom used recipes. She'd add raisins to stuffing for Thanksgiving, but other than that it wasn't unique.

However, she made a rice pudding that I've never come close to duplicating. I remember helping her stir it for what seemed like hours. Closest I've come to it in the nearly 50 years since she died is to add some tapioca.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Most people are terrified to experiment with baking. They think if they change something even slightly it will wreck the whole dish. They don't realize that this is how new things are created. I had a mom who improvised regularly as well as working for a pastry chef who did the same. That gave me the confidence to try it myself.

That's the one thing I dislike about the whole "baking is science" movement. It scares a lot of people away.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Most people are terrified to experiment with baking. They think if they change something even slightly it will wreck the whole dish. They don't realize that this is how new things are created. I had a mom who improvised regularly as well as working for a pastry chef who did the same. That gave me the confidence to try it myself.

That's the one thing I dislike about the whole "baking is science" movement. It scares a lot of people away.

[Mike Nolan]

I've always considered baking both an art and a science. Both have to be reasonably right, but there's room for innovation and experimentation in both.

There are times I go into 'mad scientist' mode, but I also know I'm a better scientist than I am an artist. (Comes from that engineering training in college and the fact that I can't draw a straight line!)

I suspect many families would prefer their designated baker not experiment so much, I know my wife has said that to me.

[BakerAunt]

That's why sites such as Nebraska Kitchen are so important. When I started reading and commenting on the now defunct KAF Baking Circle, I realized that I had more scope than I thought for experimentation, provided I kept some basic guidelines in mind--what Cass (Kid Pizza) calls baking science. I don't think that most of us get those basics or have the "why" explained, so the process at first seems mysterious. What I've learned here and from some books have helped me become bolder in the kitchen.

And then there are those chefs who like to keep the process mysterious....

Perhaps a parallel to this story is that if you search a recipe on the internet, a lot of times, what comes up is the same recipe over and over--sometimes without attribution. A lot of cooking blogs are batting around the same recipes.

[Mike Nolan]

What's worse is that a lot of those repeated recipes are badly flawed.

[navlys]

As an example, I remember an appetizer I had several years back of antipasto squares made with pasta sheets. They could be hand held. Whenever I search for antipasto squares with pasta I get the Pillsbury crescent recipe. The internet searches have become corrupted by commercialization. IMHO.

[BakerAunt]

It's also that a lot of people seem to prefer these commercial "shortcuts" and re-post them. I've tried doing advanced searches with the direction not to display results with such ingredients, and yet they still pop up.

That antipasto recipe sounds great Navlys. Let us know if you ever find it!

• This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 7 months ago by BakerAunt. Reason: grammar

[Mike Nolan]

Look at recent winning recipes from the Pillsbury Bake-Off, they all feature shortcuts to actually making dough. (And Pillsbury has IMHO been stacking the contest to favor those types of recipes.)

These days half of my net searches seem to bring up Twitter posts.

Is it any wonder that, according to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon is replacing Google as the primary search tool for products?

[Mike Nolan]

Apropos of this thread, over the weekend I ran across a recent Epicurious article talking about a recipe that is remarkably close to my mother's oatmeal crisps cookie recipe:

Epicurious post

What I found interesting about this article is that the author was trying to improve her grandmother's 'Cowboy Cookie' recipe. Her conclusions: Changing from Crisco to butter adds a nice buttery flavor, but causes the cookies to go flat, something I've known since the 1950's. (My sister always made these cookies with butter. When my younger son tried experimenting with the recipe about 10 years ago, his first thought was to change from Crisco to butter, too. As Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr first said in 1849: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!)

Otherwise, add more salt and use less leavening.

Do that (and reduce the vanilla) and you wind up with the recipe MY mother always used. (I've experimented with using alternate chocolates, but I usually go back to Nestles Morsels.)

Her other suggestion, let the dough rest for 24-36 hours, is one that would NEVER have worked in our house, we kids (and my mother) ate almost as much raw dough as we baked.

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