[.ca] Settlement Cook Book (ISBN 1557094365)

Excellent "basic" cookbook:
I received this book as a gift about 15 years ago & it is by far my most often used. It was originally copyrighted in 1901 & has been revised many times, however many of the recipes still appear as they did then. Recipes range from the very simple (scrambled eggs or grilled cheese sandwiches) to exotic (Fondue Bourguignonne). It will take you from breakfast to an after dinner cordial - all from scratch. Recipes are easy to follow. Basic equivalents (i.e.2.20 pounds = 1 kilo) & substitutions make converting any recipe easy. And it contains much more than just recipes. There are menu planning ideas, freezing, canning & dehydrating charts, special diet recipes, & even a stain removal guide! This is a great book for the beginning cook or someone that needs a bit of everything all in one place.

A nice basic cookbook from times past:
I just received my copy of this quaint reprint of the 1903 Settlement Cookbook, "The Way to a Man's Heart," and I am very pleased with it. The book is a very sturdy cream coloured hardcover, which is a mixed blessing--I imagine this well-bound volume will stay together throughout the years, although it will under no circumstances lay flat! I also feel the need to mention that while the interior pages of the book appear to be perfect facsimiles of the original book's pages, the cover appears unfortunately pixely, as though it was printed on someone's home computer. But no matter. The book's content is excellent. Basic recipes abound here--lemonade, hot cocoa, fried doughnuts, roast beef and chicken, omelletes, baked custard, white bread, baked beans, gingerbread, pickles, preserves, and hundreds of others. Those who want to cook good old-fashioned food the old-fashioned way will enjoy this book no doubt. A word of caution: This book does contain many basic recipes, but I wouldn't recommend it for cooks who are absolute beginners, because the authors of the book assume that the reader does have some cooking experience and the instructions for some of the recipes are rather sparse. Another note: This book would be suitable for Jewish cooks as there is not a single mention anywhere of pork, bacon, or lard. All the pie crust recipes use butter, not lard. And pork is conspiciously absent from the section on meats. Although it is over 100 years old, most of the recipes are still useable today. I say most because a few are not quite decipherable to me--one bread recipe for example calls for "a cent's worth" of yeast, and another recipe calls for a one grated "stick of chocolate," whatever that is! But the great majority of the recipes use the measurements we are familiar with--cups, teaspoons, etc. The book is American (from Wisconsin, actually) so it also uses pints and quarts, but Canadian readers should be able to easily calculate the equivalent of these measurements in mL. All in all, a very interesting, unique, and useful addition to my cookbook collection, even if every single recipe is not useable today.