Thanksgiving Dinner Ideas from the Past

I was looking for some new recipes to add to our Thanksgiving dinner and came across this review of a cookbook from The New Orleans Times Picayune in 2003.

"Whatever happened to Great Grandma's recipe file or the battered old cookbook full of her handwritten notes? How can such culinary treasures be preserved for generations to come? Who might help you recreate the lost favorites you remember from your childhood? And why don't they taste the same when you make them? You'll find some surprising answers, and plenty of old-fashioned comfort food, in an intriguing new cookbook by kitchen sleuth Lari Robling, "Endangered Recipes: Too Good to be Forgotten" (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2003).

This article had some great tips (and caveats) for recreating traditional family recipes.  I have reprinted the article below and will follow in the next few days with the recipes mentioned.

Tasty Traditions: Thanksgiving is the time to start collecting those favorite family recipes
By Constance Snow
Thursday November 20, 2003
The Times-Picayune, New Orlean

Recipes become endangered, Robling explains, when no one bothers to show a friend or family member how to make a particular dish, or the recipe card gets lost, or the dish simply goes out of fashion."

'It happens to almost every family," she said. 'You sit down to a holiday meal and realize that Grandma is the only one who knows all the secrets of her biscuits or that special gravy. With each passing day, as the last generation to truly cook from scratch grows older, we lose many recipes and cooking techniques."

It's not too late, however, and this is the ideal season to start a preservation project of your own. Get the conversation started when the extended family gathers for Thanksgiving. Talk about food memories. Find out who has what recipe. Don't even attempt to get it all down on paper until later.

‘If you're trying to learn the secrets to Aunt Whatever's chocolate fudge cake while you're trying to get Thanksgiving dinner on the table, that's insanity,' Robling said. ‘I don't want people to be cursing my name.'

Instead of sending out the usual holiday form letters, she suggested, everyone could collect a batch of recipes and enclose those in greeting cards for family members. Or one person could start a culinary chain letter, with each recipient adding his own recipes before passing it on.

As for those prized treats from the great cooks who insist that they never measure, follow her practical advice: Ask them to show you how to make the dishes. If necessary, follow them around the kitchen with measuring cups, measuring spoons and ruler.

‘If they're the sort who are thrown by this, she said, ‘you can always measure all of the ingredients before they start to cook, let them do their thing, then measure what's left . . . Make a note of how fast the boil is, the appearance of the batter, or the feel of a dough. These little details often mean the difference between success and so-so . . . Too much information is better than not enough.'

In her final chapter, "Passing Down the Plate: Collecting Your Own Family Recipes," Robling recounts the story of the family that always made an Easter ham by cutting off the shank portion before roasting it. ‘Finally someone asked Mom why she did that and her response was 'because your grandmother did it.'

When Grandma was asked, her answer was that her pan was too small to accommodate the whole ham. Although they had a bigger pan, the succeeding generations cut off the shank because that's what they knew.'

Sometimes trusty old traditions don't work out for more sinister reasons. Maybe the batter overflows when you try to make the quick bread that your mother always baked in coffee cans — because many brands of coffee no longer hold a full pound. Maybe a casserole is too soupy because it's bound with crackers that are smaller than they were in Grandma's day. Maybe it's too dry because a can of soup just ain't what it used to be.

‘Cans aren't the same size. Crackers aren't the same size,' Robling said. "Manufacturers tinker so much now — taking out an ounce here or a quarter-ounce there. When they went to hydrogenated oils, that changed the whole character of certain products. And now they're thinking about going back . . .'

When an older recipe calls for a ‘tall can' or ‘large box of a name-brand ingredient, she recommends contacting the company web site or consumer information line to ask about any changes in the product or the volume of the packaging. That should also be kept in mind as you record the recipe for future generations. Try to include detailed notes on precise weights and measurements. And consider the disparity between past and current kitchen equipment.

‘Your oven might be calibrated differently, or insulated differently,' Robling said. ‘That affects temperature settings and air circulation. When home cooks first went from wood stoves to gas, they complained that it was just not as good, and now here we are, saying the same thing about microwaves and other appliances. Who knows what we'll be cooking on in the next 20 years - maybe something that's not even invented yet.

‘The fun part is getting to be the sleuth,' she said. ‘That's when my dog-with-a-bone personality really helps. After you've exhausted family sources, look for similar dishes at local street festivals and bake sale tables. Check community cookbooks. Another place I've found a lot of recipes — taxicabdrivers! There's even a New York cabbie cookbook.

‘You'll also find plenty of leads in family pages on the Web, recipes for Aunt Tootsie's whatever,' she said. ‘How accurate they are, I don't know.

‘Consider setting up your own family web site with a recipes section,' she said. ‘Keep the traditions alive.'

Meanwhile, here are a few tasty old traditions rescued from some of the best cooks I know, including friends Kathy Boyd, Roy Finamore and Times-Picayune food editor Dale Curry. We begin with a French Canadian meat pie that's usually on Robling's own Thanksgiving table. The recipe originally came from a Mrs. Holland, on one condition: that it was not to be shared with Mrs. Holland's children. It seems she feared the only reason her kids came home for the holidays was for a taste of this pie, and that they wouldn't make the trip if they could bake it for themselves.