Vintage cookbooks revisited

One of my passions is collecting cookbooks. Not just the glossy cookbooks of today but also those recipe collections put together by myriad women’s groups, school committees, fund-raising churches and other community groups. Often these books are picked up a secondhand bookshops and many come with bonus recipes scribbled on the blank “NOTES” pages at the back, on scraps of paper, envelopes, torn greetings card or as clippings from newspapers and magazines.

Over the next few blogs I will delve into some of my old cookbooks and feature some of the recipes that paint their own picture of cooking Down Under earlier last century...


SOME of my old recipe books have previously been owned by very active cooks who pencil in their own thoughts next to recipes. Today’s book was put out by the Rangi-Ruru Old Girls’ Association in 1960 to raise money for the school’s 1964 75th anniversary fund. This book was obviously a favourite with its first owner for many years. There are notes on the recipes in her hand throughout, along with others written on pieces of paper and slipped between the pages and one for Fillets Florentine, which was “Molly’s recipe,” was dated 24/5/89.

The Casserole Steak on P21 is “Good”. So is the Savoury Steak on P26 and the Coconut Tart was deemed “Delicious cold”. But in someone else’s writing was a reminder to the cook not to bother making the Onion Custard again – “Not good”. She was game to try it in the first place. Halved small onions rolled in flour were baked in milk for 20 minutes then an egg, shaken in an “Elizabeth” shaker with more milk was added with some grated cheese and the onion custard was returned to the oven for browning. I suspect the “Elizabeth” shaker was the lidded aluminium sort used in those days for shaking flour and water for thickening stews, or for making milkshakes.

In a time when Australasian fare was still largely British-influenced, an occasional exotic recipe would pop up like Armenian Lamb Stew, no doubt contributed by a Rangi-ruru old girl who was a world traveller.

Armenian Lamb Stew with Spinach

1lb lamb, breast, neck or flap, cut in pieces
1 tablespoon dripping
1 tablespoon flour seasoned with pepper and salt
1 cup sliced onion
1 cup peeled, diced tomato
1 bunch spinach
1 cup water
2 bay leaves

Trim fat from lamb and roll in seasoned flour. Brown in the dripping in frying pan. Add onion and cook slowly 15 minutes. Put in casserole with water and cook in slow oven until tender about 2 hours. Half an hour before the lamb is done, add shredded spinach or silver beet and tomatoes, and return to oven.

Cooks who went through the war years had become used to being thrifty. Recipes for meringues and pavlova might have scribbled next to them pointers to recipes where the egg yolks might be used.


The label off an old Highlander sweetened condensed milk can fell from the pages. On the back between the cheesecake recipes was one for Highlander Mayonnaise. This was made in thousands of homes up and down New Zealand for many years. My mother, grandmothers, aunts, friends’ mothers all made it to go on the shredded iceberg salads with their concentric circles of tomato, grated carrots, grated cheese, hard-boiled eggs and spring onions.

Highlander Mayonnaise

1/2 tin Highlander Milk
1/4 pint salad oil or melted butter
1/4 pint vinegar or lemon juice
2 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dry mustard dash or cayenne pepper

Place all ingredients in a bowl and beat well until the mixture thickens. That’s all! And it makes a delicious salad mayonnaise that can be stored in a cool place for a very long time.


It no doubt would have made a nice accompaniment to the moulded salad recipe an earlier owner of this book had scribbled the back of an old Christmas card. This is a terse recipe, typical of so many jotted down off the radio, given over the phone by a friend, or scribbled quickly after a meal while it remained fresh in the memory. The competent cook had no need of long-winded instructions.

Lime jelly
Coleslaw very finely chopped
Mint
Chives
Parsley
Capsicum

Put in mould.


Moulded salads were very popular round this time. I can remember concocting a creation made of tomato juice, diced cucumber, peas, celery and other chopped vegetables. It was set in a ring tin and the centre was later filled with some delight – probably canned salmon or diced ham mixed with mayonnaise and spring onions.

This book contains mainly desserts, cakes, biscuits and other baking, jams and chutneys. There are only 11 pages of meat and luncheon dishes including baked steak and bananas – the latter were sliced and sandwiched between thin pieces of veal then covered with rashers of bacon and casseroled. There's a curry casserole with plenty of sultanas, raisin and apple included. Leftovers could be combined with cooked rice, rolled in flour and dipped in batter and fried in boiling fat. These were served with grilled bacon and sliced lemon.

Before we leave this book, here are two recipes that would have had the dinner guests spellbound.

The first was for cocktail carrots. Processed cheese was softened in the oven then mixed with a dash of Worcester sauce and tinted with yellow and red food colouring until of carroty hue. This was then rolled into carrot shapes with a wee stalk of parsley poked in the end for “leaves.” These were placed on a lettuce-covered dish. “Rabbits” were made of two-decker sandwiches cut out with a rabbit-shaped cookie cutter. Complete with cloves for eye, they sat amid the carrots. Yummy!

And lastly Savoury Lilies. I am picking that the lilies the recipe author had in mind would have been arum lilies. The savoury meat loaf was probably sliced “luncheon sausage”.

Savoury Lilies

rounds of savoury meat loaf
mashed potato
mayonnaise
spring carrots

Combine mayonnaise with potato, Smooth onto savoury meat round to within 1/2in of the edge all round. Lay a sliver of cooked carrot across the centre to form the “pistil” then bring the bottom edges of the round together to form the lily shape. Secure with toothpicks.

Vintage Cookbooks Part 2 >>
Vintage Cookbooks Part 3 >>
Vintage Cookbooks Part 4 >>