Resurrected Recipes

November 4, 2009 3:16 PM

Resurrected Recipes
Resurrected Recipes is devoted to researching and recreating recipes that are no longer in vogue, but were familiar to our grandparents, or even our great-great-grandparents and beyond. Many old recipes are very tasty, and it’s a mystery why they’ve been forgotten. Others have been forgotten for good reason. We’ll try them and find out which category they belong to.

Our emphasis is food from the turn of the 20th century to the 1970s, but we will also occasionally dabble in recipes from earlier times, right back to medieval cookery. Additionally, there are other posts related to vintage/historic kitchens and cooking, such as vintage cookbooks, kitchen equipment, interesting old articles and ads, etc.

The blog belongs to two of us, one who has a degree in Family and Consumer Science, and the other (me) who is a history geek, loves to bake, and cooks in a 1920s-style kitchen, complete with a late '20s refrigerator and a cast iron stove.

posted by litlnemo (18 comments total)

This is supercool. Bookmarked. Hell, if it had more contact, I'd be posting it to the front page right now. I look forward to future posts.
posted by dersins at 5:48 PM on November 4, 2009

Er, more content. What the hell, me?
posted by dersins at 9:13 PM on November 4, 2009

I knew what you meant. Yeah, it's true that it still doesn't have a ton of posts in the archives yet, but I figured there might be enough -- and some of the posts are content-heavy. And there will be more. (Next: the results of the orange omelet recipe.)
posted by litlnemo at 12:25 AM on November 5, 2009

This is really cool. I am definitely sharing this. One thing I would mention is the contrast. That green headline color is not easy on the eyes (and I don't even wear glasses).
posted by parmanparman at 10:21 AM on November 5, 2009

parmanparman, thanks. That's a good point -- I've just now darkened the headline color and the color of the links in the sidebar. Might also darken the main link color, too. Thank you!
posted by litlnemo at 3:00 PM on November 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

I love the concept. Didn't find as many actual recipes as I expected, though -- there's more talk about cooking. Also, I'm intrigued by the potential recipes. Maybe there's someway to invite readers in to experiment with them and report back their results? I'd do some of that.
posted by msalt at 1:17 PM on November 6, 2009

Yeah, we are trying to mostly post recipes that we are actually testing. And we can't test old recipes every day (darn it), so there is other stuff too, but it's all related. I suppose if we just posted the old recipes without worrying about trying all of them, it would be easier to find material to post! Hmm.

I would love to see what readers come up with -- I am hoping that folks do try the recipes and let us know how it goes. So far people haven't really been commenting much.

Thanks for the feedback!
posted by litlnemo at 2:01 PM on November 6, 2009

Fantastic blog. I have serious stove envy now.

I'll be following this blog regularly.
posted by mmmbacon at 9:10 AM on November 7, 2009

Thanks!

About that stove -- they turn up on Craigslist relatively regularly, but they are heavy cast iron and very hard to move or ship. Ours was about 40 miles away and on the second floor of a house, and had to come up a set of stairs to our own house, so you can imagine the fun of moving it. It's not going to be moved again anytime soon!
posted by litlnemo at 2:58 PM on November 7, 2009

Brilliant. I'm a history geek and food person too, and collect vintage cookbooks. It really does fascinate me how different both the processes and the flavor combinations are. There are just entire preparation methods that have passed out of fashion, and that intrigues me. I love reading old recipes, and often wonder what they'd taste like, but am half afraid to waste the time and ingredients to find out. This is such a magnificent idea!
posted by Miko at 9:44 PM on November 7, 2009

Thank you, Miko!

Are there any particular processes or flavor combinations we should post about? Or any recipes you'd like to recommend?

I find the hardest part is not just getting bogged down in browsing any interesting old recipes, and focusing on ones that are sort of "fading away" if not fully lost these days. Because I keep going "look at this awesome cookie recipe! I want to make that!" and then realizing it doesn't fit the blog theme, because it's a common recipe today, even if it's an old recipe.

If the blog was just "post random old recipes," I'd have enough content lined up for years, perhaps. :) There are lots of blogs that do that, though.

I am thinking the next experiment will be an aspic. Maybe this week sometime.
posted by litlnemo at 3:24 PM on November 9, 2009

Ha - I was going to say aspic!

Let me go through some of my old cookbooks at home. I know what you mean, a lot of cakes and cookies are still in use and just morphed. One thing that always leaps out at me are differences in appetizers - when the "canape revolution" occurred in about the 50s I guess, there were so many really odd little bite-size-food experiments. I once planned a 40s-themed party where people were supposed to bring retro appetizers, and we got some really neat ones, but still people chose things that fit modern taste preferences. I'll follow up (remind me if I don't!)
posted by Miko at 8:07 AM on November 10, 2009

Oooh, appetizers. Yeah, those 1950s cocktail party appetizers are interesting!

I am going ahead with the aspic experiment. Now I just need to find some molds! I guess I could use custard dishes for now.
posted by litlnemo at 4:01 PM on November 11, 2009

Or perhaps Bundt pans. I always see things I think are nifty Bundt pans in thrift shops - and they turn out to be aspic molds. Which you can tell by the heft of the metal.
posted by Miko at 8:39 PM on November 11, 2009

I have seen so many jello molds in thrift stores over the years and never bought one. I think I need to do this now.
posted by litlnemo at 5:08 AM on November 14, 2009

The tomato aspic results are up!
posted by litlnemo at 2:34 AM on November 16, 2009

Thanks, everyone, for your kind words (and votes, heh) in Projects. It was really nice to get this positive feedback! Since I posted this Project last month I've made, and posted about, orange omelets (excellent), tomato aspic (not so good), 17th century fruitcake (pretty tasty), and just now, malted milk cake (great cake, mediocre icing). I've also posted other topics about historic cooking and kitchens. (Dersins, is there enough content yet?) ;)

I haven't gotten very many comments posted on the blog, so the feedback here really was helpful -- it inspired me and also makes me feel a responsibility to keep the blog going. Once again, thanks everyone! And if you have any suggested recipes, please do let me know.
posted by litlnemo at 3:23 PM on December 9, 2009

I hope you keep with it. Food blogs seem to take a long time to take hold and be heard above the noise. It may take enough time to build up a serious content library before you get any traction, but it's still worthwhile. Both foodies and history buffs will find something of interest in your project!
posted by Miko at 8:40 PM on December 9, 2009