Post #4175894

2026-07-26 20:01 UTC

Some of my favourite recipes are from this era. They can be basic, but changing them up is easy. Some recipes encourage using what you have. Bread recipes call for "liquid" or "fat", and ypu just used what you had. Far easier to figire.out how to substitute from that. Community cookbooks have also vanished. Churches, schools, groups all published books for fundraisers. You could get a lot of varied and interesting recipes depending on the background of your group. With the internet why publish? There are easier ways to get money. Now thrifting yields a lot of more modern cookbooks. Glorious tomes of fancy photos and specific, direct instructions on how you have to make the recipe. The flexibility and confidence to make and modify is gone.

Replies (2)

@commonst@social.vivaldi.net 2026-07-26 20:13

This shift is also happening at a time when that flexibility matters. Everything is expensive, especially if there is demand for it. I don't know where I am going with this. It's a bit disappointing to see the pretty but not as useful books starting to dominate. I mean, they have their place and I do own several of them. But they feel less useful right now somehow. Maybe I'm just stuck in a pattern? But anyway, that's what I am thinking about this week as I cook.

Open ##4175896
@giflian@techhub.social 2026-07-26 20:17

@commonst@social.vivaldi.net I remember back in the 90s baking a birthday cake for a friend from a 1960s recipe and everyone assuming the cake would taste boring, and then being surprised at how good it was. Like the 90s invented good food? It was a "spice cake" and had basic ingredients.

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