I took a 67 year journey back in time yesterday. I’d already reviewed the latest version of Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book a bit back. This edition, the 16th came out in 2014, and I compared it with the 15th edition from 2010. There were moderate changes between the two but still I suggested, if you have favorite recipes, that you keep both editions close by.
Now this the “New Cook Book.” Originally, it was called just the “Cook Book” and I was able to get my hands on a copy of the 1947 edition of that book. I wondered how different they were.
To make life easy, I started with one common chapter in the two books: candy. It’s iconic, it’s something everyone likes, and I just was curious about any changes over the 67 year period.
One thing is almost the same. In 1947, there were 38 candy recipes. In 2014, it had expanded all the way up to 39. But after that, it’s a tidal wave of change, an impressive tidal wave of additions and deletions.
In 1947, there was one fudge recipe. Now there are 7. And four of those are “easy” where you cook without using a thermometer, the bane of all home candy cooks. In 1947, there were 5 taffy recipes but in 2014, taffy is gone. Lollypops and nougat and penuche are gone. The simple candied nuts are gone.
What appears now are nut clusters, and bark in 8 different flavors, including butterscotch toffee and coconut macadamia. No macadamia nuts in the 1947 edition, anywhere in the book.
There are just a handful of recipes with the same title that have carried over: simple chocolate fudge, caramel apples, and popcorn balls. The titles are the same but expedience has crept in. In 1947 you made your caramel. In 2014, you melt a package of caramels.
The basic fudge recipe, though, is very similar. Milk is replaced by half-and-half. But the amounts of sugar, chocolate and vanilla are the same.
What can you conclude? By 1947, some recipes — like the fudge — had been perfected. Others have been “quickened” now for our microwave society, like the caramel apples. And whole things that were “common” a couple of generations ago, well, they have fallen off the map. When, by the way, was the last time you had a piece of taffy? When was the last time you made one?
I’m sure that if I looked at the other chapters in the two books, I would discover an equal array of immense changes. It makes you realize that if you talk about “American Food” you are really taking a snapshot and that as time flows the subject moves despite the camera. And it can move dramatically.