GRANDMA ONA'S RECIPE BOOKS

 

Ona Dort Post Smith

Our grandmother was pragmatic. She may have collected recipe books in her day, but what she kept were only the hand-selected favorites that made their way into her notebooks. She gathered and neatly recorded recipes into her signature dime-store spirals—recipes from her mother, her aunts, her mother-in-law, her friends and her ladies’ magazines. They were the tried-and-true recipes that a young homemaker found traditionally popular and delicious to serve to her family in the early 1920s, before and beyond.

The only “real” cookbook that survived was the black EveryDay Cookbook that was passed down to G’ma Smith from her mother-in-law, Emma. I do recall “being allowed” to look through it as a kid—but I was more interested in the little things slipped between its yellowed pages than the recipes it contained. That well-worn cookbook (“and Cyclopedia of Practical Recipes”) was her keepsake. It may even have been passed down to her as a helpful guide to a newlywed homemaker.

Pumpkin Pie Recipe

G’ma Smith opened a new spiral every decade or so and copied the best-of-the-best from the older notebooks into the newer ones. Why? I don’t know. Maybe it was just a pastime, but maybe it was purposeful, ensuring that her favorite “heirloom” recipes would be preserved in each one for the people who might eventually claim a notebook as a keepsake. I say that because she sometimes went back and inserted words to show how the recipe's contributor related to mom: “Your grandmother” Smith’s cookies. In turn, mom did the same: “Morgan’s Mother’s" or “My Grandma Smith’s" cookies. You see? They were both doing it for the next keepers of the recipe notebooks. Our grandmother and her daughter knew they were “making their indelible mark” on a legacy of cooking traditions—some from generations before them.

 Below: 3-generations of a PLUM PUDDING RECIPE that Ona preserved and then copied in detail:  (l-r) Mother-in-Law Emma (Emerine) Smith's copy; Ona's copy; and the oldest copy, likely written by Emma's mother-in-law, Honour (Reynolds) Smith. 

Plum Pudding Recipe

Coming up:

 "HOLIDAY EDITION"–a selection of holiday recipes gleaned from the pages of Grandma Ona’s recipe notebooks just in time for your "vintage" holiday baking--