Family Recipes

I know what you mean, Blondie - I remeber asking my mother for the recipe for her delicious parsley pie - but it was very vague and variable! Made a basic one though and it was really yummy!

Half the joy of food is sharing - so why not recipes? Sadly, I don't have any family recipes which have been passed down, although I do have a couple of my mum's old cook books. She made a lovely fish pie - Russian fish pie, she called it - which I've googled and found recipes for koulibiak which sound very similar, so I'm going to give that a try some time. My aunt also made the best ever xmas pudding, but when I asked for the recipe, she said she just played it by ear every year!

I inherited my mums notebook with recipes she made at home, and recipes she wrote down when she worked in a hospital kitchen, enormous amounts, ie 15 pounds if flour fir the bread recipe. I don't actually use them, but they are so lovely to look at, she was a great cook and baker. I also have her Good Housekeeping Recipe book, it's enormous and the photos are incredible, so much colouring in the icing , and garish garnishes . A whole chapter on cooking for invalids, sounds horrible . But the basic recipes are still brilliant. Brings back happy memories as she died at 54, so she's not here to talk about them.

I inherited my dad's mum's recipe box in 1975. A few weeks ago my son told his son that Granny knows how to make pickles and wanted to know how. I got into my gran's box and found my favorite of her pickle recipes. I copied her handwritten one on Xerox and sent it with a little story. So now my 13 yo DGS is making his Great Great Grandmother's pickles. It does my heart good.

I still have many hand written recipes from my Mum back to my Great Gran !
I find it really amusing how food is like fashion - a constant recycle of the same .
My Grans pickle (think Branston) has been shared ad infinitum with friends. A tad sad in a way as no longer can be given as a present !

Mmmmmm, this thread has caused me to go to my cupboards, stare long an hard at the contents and I've still got no idea what I want to try and make

Why are people so funny about sharing recipes? I’ve never understood that

Many years ago I naively asked MIL how to make her chocolate icing, her reply was I don't know I just put things in a bowl. So I asked but do you use cocoa or drinking chocolate, I don't know she said.........I gave up and never asked again

I usually make my own Bailey's Irish Cream but it's not really a family recipe, although my DH had a long and proud Irish ancestry.

My father bless him was an amazing cake maker but unfortunately never made anything from a recipe, just would do everything from feel. If asked he would say oh just put in a few handfuls of this or that so none of his things were passed down. My Sicilian mother in law made a wonderful chicken and rice pie and my youngest daughter acquired the recipe before mother in law died so she is now the official maker of Grandmas rice dish.

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Aepgirl they always say the best pastry is made with lard but now it is so un-PC that hardly anyone uses it.Margarine is used instead, which has a much lower melting temperature.
It makes all the difference.

My only family recipe is my Auntie Minnie's "choppy" which I've mentioned before and is, for me, an absolute must with salads and cold meats.

I inherited my Mum's handwritten cookery book but it says things like, "currants, a bit of lard and flour."
No method and no temperatures as I think she just bunged it in the old range

I learned some things by watching and every now and then Mum would give me a tip such as, 'a teaspoon of vinegar can be used with one egg, instead of two eggs in a cake." War time rationing?

My first bought cookbook was "Learning to Cook" a school text book by Mary Foster which I picked up at a library sale.
It's been absolutely invaluable.

I've made a file of favourite family recipes so my sons (both of whom cook) can still bake when I'm no longer around.

My mum was a terrible cook - thank goodness for Findus otherwise we’d have starved.

I do have an old world cookery book of hers she bought in the 50s with recipes from countries which no longer exist. Absolutely fascinating reading.

I’d love a GN cookbook

Why would anyone keep a recipe secret? Food is meant to be shared. Unless you’re planning on making a fortune out of it...

What about a Gransnet cookbook?

I don't have any handed down recipes but I do have a folder with recipes in it that I have used since my children were youngsters, not the parents/grandparents they are now

I haven’t baked since my DH died, four years ago. It isn’t worth it just for me, and I am trying to keep my weight down His favourites were apple pie and coconut pyramids.
Now, reading all your posts is enticing me to get out the mixing-bowl

To all those baking ladies who used to bake but don't do so much any more because there are not many 'eaters'. About a year ago, we had an open garden for U3A and - of course- most ladies brought a creation - sweet or savoury. We ended up with a big table full of many different goodies - what a sight. Of course not everything got eaten and most of us tried to do most of the assembled spread justice.
Recipes were requested and we came to the conclusion that we ought to start a 'Baking Friends' group. And so we did - rules: every second month - different hostess - and hostess decides on main ingredient - together with baked item, the baker agrees to email recipe on request. That's it and a jolly good afternoon is had by all, plus we get baking again. Perhaps more 'Baking Friends' groups will get going, who knows - it doesn't need much and is fun.

So funny nanna58 I used to bake everything from scones to tray bakes and if I say so I was good and all the family loved it but now if I bake I eat and get fat, so I don't do it but if I do I give it away.

My mother was given a recipe for beef curry by our cook when she lived in Malaya over 50 years ago. It lists all the separate spices and quantities. I still make it and have passed it on to DS who cooks it for his family.

When my MiL died, my DD, then aged 9 was so sad because she would never have one of her casseroles again. Some how since then we have marked passings by remembering the recipes we consider their signature recipes.

As I said, for my MiL her casseroles, my DM her curry, DF his pork meat loaf, An aunt, her soggy fruit cake, (I can never get it soggy enough), my sister, her pasta recipe.I suppose in some years they will be deciding on mine. I might just ask them tot ellme while I am living.

My mother is, and always was, a truly terrible cook- any recipes that are secret are definitely best kept that way! ☠️

I have my mother's handwritten recipe book which she started when she first got married in 1938. It includes such things as Wartime Mincemeat, which I've never made because it seems, understandably, rather frugal. I use her Green Tomato Chutney recipe though, and sometimes, the Christmas Cake and pudding. She was a good, though plain cook, but lacked the confidence to "play it by ear". I'll pass it on to one of my DC when I go.

I'm going to start baking again even if it means I get fat eating it. This thread is encouraging.

I agree that recipes should be shared and don’t understand people who won’t. Someone once gave me a recipe for flapjacks - best ever - that I’ve used dozens of times over the years, but when I mentioned to her that I gave it to someone else she was really nasty about it, God knows why, she wasn’t a recipe writer!
So... here it is:
500g porridge oats
250g light muscovado sugar
250g butter
Small box of fresh raspberries or blueberries
Melt butter and sugar until sugar dissolved, thoroughly stir in oats, then lightly stir in the fruit without mashing it to bits. Press into a shallow square cake tin lined with foil or baking parchment and bake in a cool oven for about 45 minutes-1 hour until very golden on top. Leave to cool for at least a couple of hours and preferably overnight, then turn out and cut into squares with a bread knife.

I’m now sooooooo hungry!

I once got a recipe from a family member, she must have been unhappy to give it but never said so. It was a disaster from start to finish it took 3 attempt on my part to get it right, she wrote the amount of ingredients all wrong by a lot. Never ever asked her again and made it often when we had family occasions but she never said a word