Historic Cook Book

We have been amused looking at an old cook book that my mother had. It is the Blue Ribbon Cook Book 19th Edition. It is copyright by the Blue Ribbon Manufacturing Company, Winnipeg in 1905. It does not show the year this 19th edition would have been printed. Some advertisements in the back have 3 colours of ink (red, yellow, blue) which was not used until the 1930s.

There are chapters on various types of cooking and baking. A chapter on Gruels has a recipe for Cracker Gruel: "Use 1/4 cup plain or Graham cracker crumbs. Cook a few minutes in a cup of boiling water; add 1 cup hot milk, and a little salt"

In the chapter on Poultry and Game there is a section titled Restoring Tainted Game. "If game becomes slightly tainted, it should at once be picked clean and put into milk for a full day (24 hours), keeping it entirely covered. This will sweeten it, and it should be cooked at once." This was before the days of refrigeration or concern about salmonella.

We have been amused by a chapter titled Invalid Cookery. Toast and barley water seemed to be primary treatments for illness. Barley water is made by boiling 1 cup barley in 6 cups water. There is a recipe for Toast Water: "Cut 2 slices of bread thin, toast. Break in pieces, pour over them 1 cup boiling water, cool and strain. It may be flavoured with a little lemon juice."

Then it has something called Koumiss which was made by putting milk, sugar, and yeast in a bottle and letting it sit for 3 to 5 days to ferment. It says "tie the corks down securely." With some of these recipes for invalids I am not sure if it would cure them or kill them.

I am not sure if we would try anything from this cook book but it is interesting to look at.