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Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Baking and Remembering


Today I baked Gran's 'Raw Peanut Biscuits'.
These are the biscuits I remember eating at her house,
something we looked forward to when we visited.
I'm sure she baked other biscuits, but I don't remember them.


As a peanut-lover I couldn't get enough of the nutty flavour
and the dark crisp texture of the biscuits, 
and the peanut skins fascinated me.

Gran would send us out to the garden to eat them
and we would walk on the hard mown grass,
collecting jacaranda pods, 
imagining they were the soles off ladies' high-heeled shoes;
and spotting eggshells in the compost pile
and identifying carrot tops in the garden beds.

A few years back my aunt lent me Gran's old recipe book, 
full of handwritten recipes and recipes cut out from 
magazines and newspapers.
After some searching I found the recipe for my beloved biscuits,
and some raw peanuts still in their skins,
and recently I've converted them to fit my current diet better.


There are all sorts of recipes in here, older and newer.
The recipe above is for Pigs Cheeks Brawn.
How tastes have changed.
And just below it, another biscuit recipe.


This much-loved recipe book is barely holding together.


I always loved my Gran's handwriting,
though as a child it was hard for me to read.


I think I will have to try these Apple Orchard Cookies,
they sound delicious.


And I love this advertisement folded inside the book.


Laura baked today, also,
and did a brilliant job piping meringues.


 So afternoon tea was pretty good, here,
and full of memories.

4 comments:

Amy at love made my home said...

I love old recipe books like this, so much history from your family and your memories of your grandmother. How great that you still have this and can pass it on to your girls! The cookies sound nice, but I think that I would give the brawn a miss - actually, I know that I would give it a miss, I tried to read the recipe in the photo and had to stop!! I do love to look at these things though and compare how what we used to eat has changed so much. It is also interesting to see things that we would not eat now, but used to be popular, and how they often sound really unhealthy, but we are told that years ago the diet was so much better! An interesting thought. Hope that you enjoyed the cooking and the meringues, Laura did a great job of the piping! xx

Unknown said...

What a treasure this book is!

Alysa @ Kitchen Fellowship said...

This is such a lovely reminder of how food, cooking, and togetherness really build memories. Grateful for this post!

Are those biscuits... biscuit-liek or are they cookie-ish? So curious!

♥.Trish.♥ Drumboys said...

A rare treasure of a vintage recipe book. I love your pansies, gardening is a wonderful thing.