Happy “Back to the Future Day!” I have been thinking a lot about the future – and the past lately (mundane farm chores allow for a great deal of reflection time).
With the arrival of the day that Marty McFly was catapulted into (Back to the Future 2)- I have wondered what it would be like to step back into time – to see how I would function. Today – thanks to a special friend, I was able, in a way, to do just that – back to the late 1800’s, early 1900’s.This morning, she arrived at my door carrying these –

Recipe journals and boarding house registers from 1877 – 1915.
Each one was filled with names and home towns of boarders, and recipes of the day. Many of the recipes bearing the name of someone on the boarding house register.
I can picture these women, in the kitchen, chatting about the news of the day, news of their home towns, and sharing recipes.
The recipes are simple. Most of them are ingredients only – as women of that day knew how to mix up each recipe and at what temperature to bake a cake or bread or cookies. They weren’t working with thermostats, they just knew how hot the oven had to be – how much wood or coal to feed the stove in order to bake the perfect cake. [Continue Reading …]