Mom’s red and white checked cookbook was falling apart even when I was a child. Every time she pulled it off the shelf, which was nearly every day, tattered pages would spill out, their binder holes torn, and she’d shove the sheets back in before thumbing to the recipe she wanted. The gingham cover was spattered with brown stains, the once-white checks were now yellowed, and the corners of the book were split and frayed like the corners of a burst couch cushion. She pulled one of my favorite childhood dinners, Chicken Divan, from that cookbook’s pages, along with all of our Christmas confections: fudge, divinity, peanut butter blossoms, and bourbon balls.
When I married, Mom gave me my own copy of that cookbook. The white checks were pristine, like fresh milk, and the red were bright and cheery like cherries. It was one of my first cookbooks, and its gingham cover, like a hopeful picnic cloth, was a happy addition to our kitchen.
Until my mom gave me that cookbook, I didn’t realize how ubiquitous it is. But once I had my own, on my own kitchen shelf, I started noticing it at others’ houses. The shelves of my mother’s generation all held tattered stained copies like Mom’s, pages dog-eared and stuck together, ripped or falling out, while the copies on their daughter’s shelves were fresh, neatly shellacked, and bright red-and-white like mine.
That was fifteen years ago, when my copy was smooth and unblemished, the lone reference in our newlywed kitchen. Now, we have two rows of instructionals, and that red and white checked volume occupies the most accessible spot on the shelves: the top left corner, first of all the cookbooks. The muffin page is spattered with batter, the frosting page is sticky with sugar, and the praline page is building up its own layer of history, including notes on past failures flecked with specks of caramel candy. When my husband craves his mom’s bread stuffing from Thanksgiving, I find it in my book. When I want my mom’s biscuits, I look them up in my book.
It is not the most sophisticated of foodie references. It does not have the name recognition of The Joy of Cooking. But it has the basics, the classics, the food from our childhoods. It is the quiet cookbook that nobody makes a fuss over, but nearly every family owns. And it has that cover, that red and white checked cover, that we all recognize, even if we don’t know the book’s name. That cover that evokes cozy kitchens, and home cooking, and tradition that can be thumbed through the generations, whether on tattered yellow or crisp white pages.
This is my entry for the photo challenge: community, for our community of cookbooks that began with our red and white checked copy of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book.
Butterfly Mind 
Andrea, I’m on my second copy of ‘the red and white’ book, and it’s fall apart too. Best biscuits in the world, and have you tried the brownies? Great post.
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I have not tried the brownies, but I do love the biscuits. My mother in law still has her original copy, but bought a current one too, and whenever she tries something new she compares the two to find the best recipe.
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I remember that book well…many treasures and memories within those pages 😉
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Indeed! When I page through I’ll see the name of something Mom used to make – beef stroganoff, for example – and it carries me back.
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I thought MY Mom must have written this one when I saw the title. I’m on my first copy still, but there are pages that are falling apart fast–broccoli soup…
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Mmmm, broccoli soup. I haven’t tried that one.
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I’m so glad you have good memories from the recipes in the book. On my shelf is my second copy of it and it has pages falling out. I made pancakes from the recipe in the book for breakfast yesterday morning. Yum!
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None of mine are falling out yet, but when I was working on this post, I thumbed through to find my most used pages and noticed the binder holes on the muffins page are starting to tear. I need some of those hole reinforcers like we used to use in elementary school.
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I have that same book in my kitchen. Its pages are also sticky, dog-eared and marked from years of use. Come to think of it….just like my mom’s.
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All the signs of a good cookbook 🙂
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We also got a copy for our wedding, but I was dismayed that the newer version wasn’t EXACTLY like my mother’s. So I searched every junk store and used book store for the old one – I managed to find one that was in the state of disarray that I remember from my childhood. There are so many classic recipes in that book. The first restaurant I cooked in used it as a reference for most of the recipes we developed!
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I remember that a couple of my favorites weren’t in the new one, too. Brian’s mom kept her old one despite getting a newer copy for that exact reason – she puts them side by side whenever she’s checking a recipe to make sure she’s getting it exactly like its supposed to be. I love that you found junk store copy 🙂
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I’m hanging on to my copy, although I wish I had a ‘large’ print version now!
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I bet they make one of those!
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Andrea, hope you and Carol get to compare cookbooks some day. Janet taught all of her girls how to cook, bake, can and freeze. Their husbands are the happy beneficiaries of those long-ago lessons well learned and oft repeated. Today alone Carol made a humongous loaf of multi-grain bread, several dozen Christmas cookies and a jazzed up hummus that went extremely well with the wine!
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Mmmm, homemade bread…
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I too have the battered and dog eared version of the red and white. My Mom gave me her copy when I got married. It made me smile to hear you describe the stained pages falling out of the book every time you open it. I loved the idea of this post. Good food brings good memories.
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I think some of the best memories revolve around food, cooking, or hanging out in the kitchen. And I wonder how many of us received this book as a wedding gift from our Moms. I think it’s one of those unspoken traditions – one that I will continue if/when my daughter one day marries.
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My mom had the same cookbook, it was always great when you saw it out as it meant something different or really good was on the way!
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