When I was at my mom's for Christmas, she gave me a stack of old recipe booklets that she had and I am having a ball going through them. Some of these are pretty old. The one pictured above is from 1953. It's a "measured heat" cookbook.
You might wonder what it means by "measured heat." It means an oven with a thermostat! Go figure! I thought they always had one. Well, at least ones that you didn't have to stoke the fire before using it to cook your meal.
It's funny how time and energy efficient they tried to be too. They have entire meals planned out so you can cook your main course, side dishes (both starch and veggie), bread or rolls, and dessert in one shebang. I would not waste the brain cells today trying to find all those recipes that worked at the same temperature and the same approximate time frame. It's hard enough trying to shake up the color scheme of my meal so everything isn't pale and bland looking on a plate.
Thankfully more than meal planning has changed too! I about swallowed my tongue when I read this section of the book titled "Special Recipes for the Amateur Male Cook."
If you have trouble reading it, click on the picture to open a larger image. But, beware. Your eyes might bug out at how sexist it is! Tell me. Am I masculine for liking to experiment in the kitchen? After all, I thought a woman's place was in the kitchen. Barefoot and pregnant to boot! Ah, but we don't have the ability to be true epicurean gourmands. The first chef was a man according to this book.
Note: For some reason the second picture doesn't open up. I forgot that it would do that if I moved a picture around in the entry. I don't know how to fix it. I'll upload it to Flickr and do a link to there if you want to see it in more detail.
