“The backbone of a nation is the good housekeeper, and the home maker’s greatest asset is the ability to prepare good food. The future happiness of children depends on their health, and health is obtained only through well prepared foods, fresh air and exercise.”

That is a quotation from “The Modern Cook Book,” published in 1928 by Colonial Press, and that bit of advice from the author, K. Camille Den Dooven, was the credo for women then, and for decades to follow, including my formidable great-grandmother Nettie, both of my sweet grandmothers and my amazing mother. Women worked outside the home only when dire circumstances forced them to, but I’ve often thought a 40-hour work week would have been a cakewalk compared to their “stay-at-home” jobs.

That cookbook is one of many, too many perhaps, in my extensive and still growing collection of recipes.

It belonged to a grandmother, then my mother, and now I’m faced with the fact that no one else in the family wants it or has the slightest inclination to use it. Unfortunately, I have several others, equally as old, and a few even older. No, I’m not thinking about nor trying to get rid of them; I just wish

I could get the younger generation of my family to show some interest not only in old cookbooks, but even in cooking.

When I was 14, my mother was hospitalized for what seemed like weeks but was, in reality, about 12 days, as I recall.

Before she left for the nearby hospital, she told me I was in charge of the kitchen and to make sure my father, two brothers and sister had three “good solid meals” every day. Keep in mind that these were, to most of you, the “olden days,” before frozen packaged foods, microwaves and instant anything. Everything I had to deal with was either fresh from the grocery store every day, or canned, with the exception of venison and bear meat in the rented commercial freezer locker in town.

After three or four days of spaghetti and venison meatballs, followed by frankfurters and beans, I was getting a lot of very vocal whining from my siblings, and even a sigh of disappointment from my father when I brought out the evening meal. He was too kind and gentle to say what he was thinking, but I knew, and I also knew I had to do something to prove my worth in the kitchen or I’d hear about it from Mom when she came home.

I went through my mother’s cookbooks every day, neglecting the dusting and laundry I was also charged with handling, searching for “something different” that I might be able to make, and they might eat. I found myself fascinated with ingredient listings, wondering why many of them were not in our pantry or on the cupboard shelves. I experimented, not always to the delight of my guinea pigs, but more often than otherwise,

I heard “that was really good, Margy; let’s have it again.”

And that, dear readers, was the beginning of my lifelong addiction to recipe collecting, and is the answer to some of your questions about how many recipes

I have (unknown) and how it all began.

As for the credo quoted at the beginning of the column, I still very much believe the part that says “health is obtained only through well prepared foods, fresh air and exercise.”

RECIPES

Just because it’s very old, doesn’t mean a recipe isn’t also very good. Many of our favorite dishes are from the “olden days,” tweaked only to take advantage of more up-to-date products and/or methods, but not changing the end result.

This recipe for peach cake, from a very old Pennsylvania Dutch cookbook given to me as a young bride, is a good example, and with peaches finally coming to the market ripe and ready to use, you may want to give “old but good” a try.

PENNSYLVANIA PEACH CAKE

2 cups sifted flour

5 T. sugar, divided (see instructions)

1 T. baking powder

½ t. salt

¼ cup shortening

1 egg, beaten

1 cup milk

4 fresh, ripe peaches, peeled and cut into halves

½ t. cinnamon

Sift together the flour, 3 T. of the sugar, baking powder and salt. With a pastry blender or 2 knives, cut in the shortening until mixture resembles coarse corn meal.

Mix egg and milk together, add to the flour mixture, mixing until well blended. Pour batter into a well-greased (on the bottom only) 11×7 baking pan. Cover top with the peach halves, cut side up.

Mix together remaining 2 T. sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over peaches on top of batter. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for

35 min. Remove from oven and allow to cool before cutting. Serve with a small dollop of whipped cream or ice cream.

Fresh, ripe cherries are also readily available right now, and while this cake can be made with canned fruit, it’s never as delectable as when made with fresh ripe Bing cherries. From one of my grandmother’s cookbooks; she made this every summer with cherries we picked from the tree in her yard, a tree that is still there, by the way.

FRESH CHERRY CAKE

½ cup flour

4 eggs

1½ cups milk

¼ cup sugar

2 t. vanilla

2-3 cups fresh sweet cherries, pitted

Confectioners’ sugar

Old method: In a large bowl, mix flour and eggs together. Slowly stir in the milk, sugar and vanilla. Beat until batter is smooth.

Updated (easier) method: Combine milk, eggs, flour, sugar and vanilla in the jar of a blender; whirl at high speed for a few seconds. Turn machine off; scrape down sides with a rubber spatula, then blend again for about 40 seconds.

Pat cherries completely dry then spread them evenly in a shallow, buttered 8×11 baking dish. Pour in the batter. Bake cake in the middle of a preheated 350-degree oven for 1 hr. or until top is golden and firm to a light touch. Remove from oven, dust with confectioners’ sugar; serve warm.

And yet another wonderful, very old recipe for a way to use any fresh fruit available; the base for this dessert can be turned into many different desserts.

FRESH FRUIT TRIFLE

24 almond macaroons

¾ cup sherry wine (for this recipe, I prefer the sweet, not dry, sherry)

6 egg yolks, beaten

1 cup sugar

Pinch salt

Dip the macaroons in the sherry and place them in a flat serving dish.

Beat egg yolks 15 min. (this would be with a rotary beater; using an electric beater, beat for only 5 min.); add sugar and beat a bit longer. Place in a double boiler and cook until mixture thickens, stirring constantly. Pour over the macaroons and allow to cool.

Just before serving, cover base with fresh sliced peaches, plums, nectarines, etc. or strawberries, raspberries, figs, blueberries, or a mixture of any fresh berries. Or, if it’s not fresh fruit season, cover the base with whipped cream, shaved chocolate curls and/or any chopped nuts of choice and/or toasted shredded coconut. Serves 6-8.