Author: Renee Shelton

Breads with Chocolate – Recipes from 1909

Breads with Chocolate – Recipes from 1909

Chocolate and breads go hand in hand, as evidenced by the typical breakfast breads chocolate pain au chocolat (one of my favorites – croissant dough rolled around a stick of chocolate), nutella and toast, and chocolate chip muffins. It was also popular at the turn of 

How to Preserve a Wife: Old Fashioned Advice Recipe

How to Preserve a Wife: Old Fashioned Advice Recipe

This is another old-fashioned advice recipe, this time – how to preserve a wife, or ways to keep her happy and satisfied. Other old time advice recipes: How to Preserve Children, and How to Preserve a Husband. How to Preserve a Wife Forget not to 

How to Preserve Children: Old Fashioned Advice Recipe

How to Preserve Children: Old Fashioned Advice Recipe

Many older community cookbooks had advice recipes, like How to Preserve a Wife, and How to Preserve a Husband. This one is how to preserve children, or ways to keep them happy. The recipes change and evolve, and different ‘ingredients’ are added and subtracted, depending on where the readers of the poem or recipe lived. This one is geared toward children with areas to run around.

How to Preserve Children

  • 1 large grassy field
  • 1/2 dozen children, or more
  • 2 to 3 small, friendly dogs (if in season)
  • Deep, clear blue sky
  • A narrow strip or pinch of a running brook
  • Small pebbles for skipping on water
  • Sunshine for warmth
  • Trees, as needed for climbing
  • Flowers, optional, for picking

Mix the children with the dogs together, and put them in the field. Stir constantly, adding flowers and trees as necessary. Pour in the brook, and add pebbles for the bottom, and add more for skipping. Spread over this a clear, blue sky with lots of sunshine. Bake in a hot sun until thoroughly happy. When tanned and warmed through, remove and set in a cool bathtub with favorite toys. When dry, serve with a glass of cool milk and fresh baked cookies.

How to Preserve a Husband: Old Fashioned Advice Recipe

How to Preserve a Husband: Old Fashioned Advice Recipe

Old community cookbooks are fun to read. They were printed to share recipes of family favorites in order to support a charity, community project, church, or even a hospital. Some were also there to share helpful advice. Whether these advice recipes were actually ‘tested’ or 

Foodie Friday: Oyster Shortcake from 1921

Foodie Friday: Oyster Shortcake from 1921

Another unusual recipe from A Modern Manual of Cooking by Marion Harris Neil. This recipe is for an oyster shortcake using a quart of oysters. It’s really large shortcake biscuit served with an oyster and sauce filling. The recipe is as it was printed in