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Favourite old recipe book that you still use?

(82 Posts)
lilypollen Fri 23-Mar-18 20:44:47

Baked a Simnel cake for Easter today using a well-used recipe from Black Hamlyn book published in 1970. Looked through it and there are at least 12 recipes that I still use today.

Sheilasue Sun 25-Mar-18 15:44:24

Mrs Beeton not that I use it now but keep because it was a wedding present. I have a few cook books. Latest is James duigan clean and lean diet.

Harris27 Sun 25-Mar-18 14:43:51

Have loads of books lining the shelves but I like my be - ro as well. Happy times when the boys were little.

Maccyt1955 Sun 25-Mar-18 13:43:07

My Scottish grandmother was a cook, and I loved to watch my Oxfordshire grandmother cook apple crumbles and egg custard tart. So my parents bought me a copy of The Good Housekeeping Institute’s ‘Cooking is Fun’, in 1965.
I treasured this book and I still do, even though the pages are very tatty now.

eGJ Sun 25-Mar-18 13:30:25

Still count 25 strands of spaghetti per person as in Cooking in a Bedsitter every time I do spag Bol!?

goldengirl Sun 25-Mar-18 13:15:22

A book I won at school courtesy of Stork - probably because my cooking was so awful. It's my go-to recipe book and whilst I like 'modern' books, it's the best book I've ever come across for basics.

Camelotclub Sun 25-Mar-18 13:14:56

I admire you all for cooking. My favourite Easter recipe is a Cadbury's choc egg.

B9exchange Sun 25-Mar-18 12:59:50

The only prize I ever won at school was the 'Housecraft' prize, I felt rather ashamed not to have got something more academic, but I was allowed to choose my books, and the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book with its prize sticker in the front has seen me through my married life. The other one I chose was Rev Keble Martin's Flora of the British Isles, useful for identifying wild plants to the grandchildren!

nipsmum Sun 25-Mar-18 12:57:59

My very old Oxo book still has the best recipe for beef olives I've found.

fluff Sun 25-Mar-18 12:16:07

I used to love farmhouse kitchen, if I remember it was full of good honest home cooking type recipes, I could just imagine the men coming in from working the fields and sit down to eat a hearty casserole followed by a good wedge of fruitcake.

Ruby41 Sun 25-Mar-18 11:53:27

Katharine Whitehorn's 'Cooking in a Bedsitter' did it for me through my bedsitter days and beyond too. When it fell apart I bought a new one to pass on to my son!

P3terpan Sun 25-Mar-18 11:53:20

My mums cookery book, it must be 70 years old I still dip into it now and again, my DD bought me a book to write all my favourite recipes in, I am faithfully doing that so I can pass it on to her.

nahsma Sun 25-Mar-18 11:44:47

My mum's ‘Readers Digest Cookery Year', from the '70s. Still gets used, especially the 'how to' instuctions in a section at the back. And I like the 'what's in season' for each month.

Jane43 Sun 25-Mar-18 11:28:35

My Mum passed on to me her very well used McDougalls baking cookery book. It is only a slim book but she swore by it and would only use McDougalls flour. I have used it for most of my baking which will reduce now as DH has just been diagnosed with diabetes.

I also have a very old Mary Berry cookery book with a wonderful recipe for lemon meringue pie, again this will be a thing of the past now.

I remember the Farmhouse Kitchen recipe books and tv programme. There was also a series of Woman’s Weekly recipe books.

Fourth granddaughter aged 8 shows an interest in baking so I will probably pass them on to her when she is older.

pollyperkins Sun 25-Mar-18 11:25:41

To answer the question I use the Be-ro recipe for sponge cake with lemon juice & yellow colouring and lemon icing and little choc egggs on top, sometimes in a nest of milk flake with little chicks too. The grandchildren seem to like it. Or little choc buns with choc icing and speckled chog eggs on top. I'm not a great cook!

GrannyO Sun 25-Mar-18 11:17:59

Allsortsofbags is this the one? It's on ebay

pollyperkins Sun 25-Mar-18 11:15:28

Ber-o book for me too (for cakes. Also still use Cooking in a bed sit (K Whitehorn), Delia's How to cheat at at cooking and her Complete cookery course (3 volumes) for main courses. Plus some weight watchers cookery books. Im afraid I tend to use tried and tested recipes. Not good at trying new things.

Skweek1 Sun 25-Mar-18 11:00:22

Good Housekeeping Step By Step Cookbook - my mum's basic standby and my copy dates back to at latest mid-70s. Have just got rid of some of the small books I have never used, having recently gone vegan, but old faithful GH coudn't bear to part with.

Teetime Sun 25-Mar-18 10:46:32

Delia Smith ' Complete Illustrated Cookery Course' 1989.

kittylester Sun 25-Mar-18 09:27:55

I've got the Katherine Whitehorn nook, Maw!

We were given Mrs Belton when we got married but I rarely used it. I have always been much more interested in more 'modern' cooking and loved buying the latest books.

My most thumbed book appears to be a Madhur Jaffrey (sp?) and I recently found a virtually unused one in a book sale at our Library - what I don't understand is why I prefer to use the old one. confused

Faye Sun 25-Mar-18 08:59:09

This is one of my favourites, I have used it a lot over the last 30 odd years.

gardenermum Sat 24-Mar-18 23:35:33

Another Marguerite Patten fan, for her 'Step by Step Cookery', bought around 1963 when my mother was very ill in hospital. I had to come home from college and despite being totally inexperienced, my father expected me to cook for him, so I rushed to the bookshop and bought this. A lucky buy, and it still sits where I can most easily reach it.

MargaretX Sat 24-Mar-18 22:10:22

I've always used the Be-ro book and now have a modernised version but still with the old favourites in

Fennel Sat 24-Mar-18 21:46:04

I've got a 1970s copy of Not Just a Load of Old Lentils by Rose Elliot.
I still occasionally make a veggie recipe from that book, very tasty ideas.
I used to have a very old Mrs. Beeton but it got lost in one of our moves.

MawBroon Sat 24-Mar-18 21:36:38

Not long afterwards I graduated to Delia’s How to Cheat at Cooking
That must have been 1973 and I see it cost me 60p
Also much thumbed and stained - easy to spot (see what I did there?) the favourite recipes!

Marydoll Sat 24-Mar-18 21:35:44

Maw what a really helpful book to have.grin