With the coming on of the holiday season what better time to review the ways in which women of the past kept track of cooking receipts (not a spelling error).
“The Card File Idea Applied To Cookbook … here again is another great interest of the housekeeper—recipes and cooking methods. How shall she arrange it all ?
The usual cookbook contains much that is only reference; again, the interested cook is always clipping new recipes from periodicals, and exchanging them with her friends.
What shall she do with this new material which is supplementary to the regular cookbook?
Again, the usual way of laying a cookbook on the table and following the recipe results in spattered and soiled pages, as well as being difficult to follow, as it lies below the eye level.
All these faults “are remedied by making a cardfile recipe cabinet, as follows….
Card File Recipe Cabinet Materials :
- 6×4 cards (about 500)
- 20-30 guide cards.
Write on each guide card the divisions into which you prefer to classify your recipes. Following is a practical arrangement, arranged alphabetically:
| 1. Beverages
2. Breads, yeast 3. Breads, quick raising 4. Cocktails, fruit, shellfish, etc. 5. Beans, peas, lentils 6. Cakes and icings 7. Candies 8. Cheese, rarebits 9. Desserts: (a) Without eggs, (b) With eggs, (c) Cake, (d) Fruit, (e) Pudding, (f) Frozen 10. Eggs, omelets 11. Fish, salt 12. Fish, fresh, shellfish s 13. Fruit, fresh, stewed 14. Fritters, waffles, pancakes |
15. Game, poultry
16. Jelly, preserves, canning 17. Lunchbox 18. Macaroni, rice, curries 19. Meats (a) Beef (b) Brains, sweetbreads (c) Mutton, lamb (d) Pork, (e) Veal 20. Menus 21. Pastry picnics 22. Pickles and catsups 23. Potatoes 24. Salads and dressings 25. Sauces 26. Sherbets and punches 27. Soup 28. Vegetables |
Special cards may be made up giving, Unusually Successful Dinners, Children’s Dishes, Formal Luncheons, Afternoon Tea, etc., etc.
Another classification might be according to the qualities of the foods, as “Proteins,” “Starches,” etc.
Other cards might be, “meat substitutes,” “fireless recipes,” “milk dishes,” “invalid dishes,” etc., etc.”,
Five points should be covered with each recipe:
1. Approximate cost
2. How many does it serve?
3. How long to prepare?
4. How long to cook?
5.Nutritive value
This file of recipes should … be kept … in a separate small box in the cabinet, or over the kitchen table…
All these cards should be punched with a small hole in the center upper edge. Then a small hook should be screwed in the shelf at about eye level, and as a card is taken from the box, it is to be hung on the hook, where it can be easily seen and read. The newest guide cards for this file have celluloid tabs so that they will not soil or become bent with constant thumbing.”,
~Christine Frederick, Household engineering
