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[blank]The recipes are succinct, written by someone who knew her stuff, to be read by another equally knowledgeable person. I’m wondering whether they were notes from the lady of the house to her cook, or from a mother to her daughter in law. There are notes explaining lemon tarts, almond creams, meringues and brioches….. No weights, measurements or temperatures, simple indications such as “a hot oven”, a large bowl of sugar ….
[blank]If you read this blog regularly then you’ll remember that Sunday is often a day when I show my ‘loot shoot’, and tell you about the goodies I found in the fairs during the week.
You’ll also know that until March this is the empty season for the fairs. But this morning, when I stopped off at an antique dealer on the way back from the farmer’s market, I found something rather special that I just had to show you![blank]
[blank]As I walked through the door of the shop, the dealer who is a good friend, turned around and ” ah, I was hoping you’d stop by today. I found something in the back of a cupboard that I think you’ll like!” How sweet was that![blank]
[blank] He went to the back of the shop and emerged holding a few pieces of yellow paper, folded in half and covered in beautiful old handwriting. I quite often find old documents, in particular papers from notary offices, or other legal documents, and I thought he was showing me the deeds to a house or papers about a bank loan.[blank]
[blank]But when I took a closer look, I had a lovely surprise. These old pages are covered with recipes for traditional French cakes and patisseries. There is no date, but from the paper and handwriting I’d guess they are turn of the century – either late 1800’s or early 1900’s.[blank]
[blank]The recipes are succinct, written by someone who knew her stuff, to be read by another equally knowledgeable person. I’m wondering whether they were notes from the lady of the house to her cook, or from a mother to her daughter in law. There are notes explaining lemon tarts, almond creams, meringues and brioches….. No weights, measurements or temperatures, simple indications such as “a hot oven”, a large bowl of sugar ….A little thing to brighten my day and set me wondering. Don’t you love it when an unexpected object sets you off dreaming![blank]
Hope you’re enjoying a lovely weekend ….
no doubt writing your list of good resolutions?![blank][blank]
43 comments
I still keep as a treasure the hand written cooking notes of my grand grandmother (born 1867)they are rather notes for herself also not indicating measures just the finesse how to give a meal a certain touch.I love it though it is not applicable for me any more. Dorka from the cold and windy winter Plain in Hungary http://www.dorottyaudvar.co.hu
Bonjour,
Quelle belle trouvaille !
Joanne du Canada
What a find. I love old recipes. I have one very old book that calls for such things as a piece of butter, or the difference between the regular potato dish and the fancy potato dish is a half an onion.
Do enjoy – also, love the ladle.
Smiles,
JoeyLea
Wonderful!
I have a very yellowed and discoloured piece of paper with a recipe for Shrimp Croquettes that my Mom used to make on special occasions.
It is written in my Mother's handwriting and I found it in her belongings after she passed away.
It is a treasure to me.
That is so neat!! I love it…..and I bet the recipes are fabulous. What a wonderful treasure from the past.
I have my Mother's cookbook, which has yellow pages. I love it! Also, my husband has a blueberry muffin recipe handwritten by his Mother. So sweet and delicious.
Oh, what a gorgeous find! This, I imagine, could really make your day just WONDERful! and, probably, the recipes are fabulous…
What a pleasant and lucky find!
Love the handwriting and yellowing paper…the mystery of the recipes. Sharon, this will be a great idea for one of your novella.xx
Ah, Amelia beat me to it! No surprise there. But yes, I was thinking the same. You know how much I love your short stories. I can see each recipe being the "recette" for a story along with your lovely photos of the final result. Non? I can totally picture it.
Your response on my last post was much appreciated–came just when I needed to hear it too.
Love finding treasures that have a story too
simply fabulous to connect to the past!!!
xxoo
Pam
Lucky you, what a treasure!
OH, what a treasure – lucky you.
I spent part of my Christmas holidays looking at my husband's great aunt's hand written recipes discovered in a Sunbeam mixer book. Not as old as your's, but it's so much fun to read a bit of everyday history. Your note pages must have been cherished recipes since paper wasn't as cheap as it is now. What is the recipe which talks about chocolate fondant? It's in the first picture.
Thanks,
Cooking in Canada
What a gift to find that. Love it.
Lisa
leeshideaway.blogspot.com
Isn't that handwriting beautiful? Wondering if and how you plan to preserve/display it…..
My goodness how wonderful is that!!!
Oh what a wonderful surprise to find. So interesting. It is good to have friends in an antique shop!!
What a treasure to find handwritten recipes. I have one written in my late grandmother's hand that I treasure, although it's not a recipe I make. Handwriting is such a personal thing, a tangible link to the person.
Gorgeous penmanship. I'm envious. Not much chance to improve mine these days…
My iPad rules! For the good and for the bad.
I love the handwriting and it's these kinda fabulous finds or gifts that set me off dreaming….and the other is your beautiful blog.
oh it's fabulous! i recently began collecting old french legal documents and notes, and i'm hooked!
they are art pieces to me with a mysterious history. how they have survived the years and ended up in my presence (in America's heartland) fills me with wonder.
🙂
michele
My grandmother, who was an excellent cook, had tons of these black and white lined notebooks in which she wrote her recipes. The penmanship was exactly like this and the style in which she wrote them very similar. When Castro took over, she tore the pages out and sent them out of the country every way she could to my mother and her sisters. My mother still has them and when I go down to Miami I will photograph them and put some on my blog.
Some of them were hilarious to us, the younger generations, for they would start with something like " 2 days before you kill the turkey you feed it with bread soaked in milk or bread soak in cognac etc"
I am so glad you posted this. Makes me appreciate them even more!
What a wonderful find! I've been told that my great-grandmother had books and folders of all of her hand-written recipes. Sadly, they were all lost during the war.
I love this. I just researched a cake my grandmother used to make. It is a cake that is based on the half-cup yogurt container. I am told it is one of the first cakes grand-méres teach the children. 1 yogurt, 2 sugar, 3 flour, plus egg and baking powder, and salt. It has jam between the layers. I asked my sister about it, but she does not care for sweets, she is a savory girl, so she did not remember. It set me on a journey with google and ancestry dot com. I found where my gggrandmother and her husband left Le Havre, France with eight children. The ships docket said oldest was eight and the youngest one year old twins. They landed in New Orleans, and then sailed up the Mississippi to St. Louis, Missouri.
I am jumping for joy with you Sharon! I feel the excitement…a lovely surprise… xxx
Vu les recettes, ce ne pouvait être que des bourgeois, meringues, tarte au citron etc …
en plus il faut savoir que sur les vieux livres de recettes, il n'y a jamais le temps ni la température, pas de cuisinière ultra moderne, cuisinière à bois, donc on regardait dans le four régulièrement si cela était cuit, on y mettait la lame du couteau pour savoir si le gâteau était cuit.
je m'excuse que mon commentaire soit publié sous anonyme, mais je ne sais pas faire autrement !
marie paule
What a beautiful treasure. I love bits of the past that give a peek into the lives people lived. What could be more important then recipes! You photos are lovely as well.
How fun….such a treasure!
You have a marvelous writing style, and when I saw those old recipes today I realized why your blog seems so familiar, though I have only recently discovered it. The Griffin and Sabine stories: charming books with letters inserted into pockets inside. You feel as if you are reading an old diary — a very well-written, and special diary. Exactly how your blog reads for me. Thank you for the lovely break in my day!
how beautiful the handwritten word. I keep a framed handwritten recipe of my grandmother's chocolate pie at my baking station. I think of her often and of her wonderful pie
How special, the shop owner knew who this should go with. The knowingness is what makes this so special. I treasure the writing of my aunt, grandmother & mother. I always wonder what was going on when they wrote this? xxpeggybraswelldesign.com
Oh my, how divine! I can see them framed, in a place of prominence in the kitchen. Beautiful.
What a wonderful find! These would make beautiful greeting card or postcard art.
OR accents to the My French Country Home Cookbook!?
Does it by chance include a recipe for flan nature? I loved eating that in cafes in Paris but I haven't been able to find a recipe. Not the flan cooked with caramel sauce, more like a custard pie in a crust…mmmmmm
S….What a great post. Although my children are grown and gone, I would love to stop in the toy shop and peruse the miniatures for Christmas ornaments! thank you for sharing this…k
Oooops…..published comment to wrong post…This one is great as well!
I've been blog-absent for so long, I have not adjusted to being back in the saddle again! 😉 k
There are antiques, and then there are antiques…but this is the stuff I love. You can't get this by sending an email to your niece about a great recipe for chocolate fudge; it just doesn't have the same impact. I keep close to my heart the passed-on-to-the-next-generation vintage letters, notes, recipes, postcards. These are the things kept lovingly by others, a tradition carried on by you, then me or someone else. It becomes a living, breathing thing, and not just a tattered piece of paper. How I love my grandmother's recipe cards, or my father's schoolboy's penmanship in his class notebook as he painstakingly "recited" Woodsworth for his "English" studies. Another relative's Dear Diary from her teenage world of 1924. My father's love letters to my mother during World War II, years before they were wed…letters in a stack, tied with a faded ribbon, kept to this day in his old army duffel bag. Some eighty years earlier, his own great-grandfather sent similar letters to his wife and children from the American Civil War front, which found him an older and reluctant soldier; poignant, as he worried for their farm, and when to sell the milk cow, or all the things a father tells a son he may not see again (which is what occurred, as he was killed in battle less than a year later). My grandfather's tiny Bible, which fit snugly in the palm of his hand and written in Dutch, inscribed haltingly by his stern Friesland mother; the only gift of the Netherlands from his childhood. My grandmother's note to him when they were courting, telling him she'd left him a homemade lemon pie on the windowsill to cool. My great-aunt's handwritten "story" to her grandchildren about her early farm life in 1800s Missouri (the Ozark mountain people), with vivid detail of everyday chores such as washing the clothes, baking the bread, planting the vegetable garden, etc. And to think that my 3rd and 4th cousins can barely write their own signatures, because they were weaned with a mouse at the computer keyboard rather than with pencil in hand…really, in terms of balance and things that matter, when is the world going to find its rhythm? Another reason why I love the feeling of a real, hardcover book in my hands instead of a Kindle…
What a treasure to behold and the lost art of beautiful penmanship. Exquisite find Sharon! I can only imagine your excitement with this discovery!
Lovely, lovely set of photos showing French Styled Home Accessories! They are pieces of art and they look great around the homes! I think you would be really interested in http://www.dibor.co.uk as they have cheap french home style accessories available online!
Thanks for this article.
Where can I get a loan online or at a bank?
Sharon Santoni’s descriptions of the different recipes, as well as the history behind them, are both informative and engaging. As someone who loves exploring different culinary traditions, I found this post to be a real treat. While this post may not be directly related to personal finance, I appreciate the importance of taking the time to indulge in simple pleasures like good food and cooking. And when it comes to personal finance, it’s important to find financial institutions that can help us achieve our goals. For those in need of a personal loan, I recommend checking out the https://fitmymoney.com/navy-federal-credit-union-personal-loans-review/ article on the Navy Federal Credit Union Personal Loans Review, which offers a thorough analysis of the pros and cons of this option. Overall, I highly recommend this post to anyone interested in French cooking and culinary history, and I appreciate the author’s dedication to sharing the joys of traditional French cuisine.