I love thrifting. There is something about picking through piles of stuff that my mother would call junk that gets me excited. I feel as if I am on a treasure hunt. I thrift/hunt where ever I am. I usually look for the funkiest looking places and hope I find a buried treasure. Sometimes I come up empty handed but every so often the hunt is worth the dirty hands.
This time I had to go to Ocala. Don’t know why I had to go to Ocala (probably didn’t have to go there but ended up there anyway). I saw a sign for an auction house that was open on non-auction days. I must have driven by the place a few times before but that was with the hubby and he doesn’t always want to stop. I was on my own and pulled in.
In true auction-style there were seats set up for an audience with the coolest antiques and vintage items set on a table in front for people to look and plan their bidding. I asked about prices on some of the things on the table and got a little nervous. Nervous enough to leave that table but not nervous enough to leave the place.
I started poking around in corners and found a box of magazines and books. Old Life and Look magazines from the 60’s priced good enough to take a chance on. Kept looking. Then I found a bag with a hospital basin in it. Hospital basins are good for lots of things like holding old cookbooks and recipes and that was exactly what was in the basin.
Published in 1939, the “Viko the Guaranteed Aluminum New Many Feature Cook Book: A Mirro Product” is a spiral bound, 264 page book loaded with recipes.
Many of the recipes are comfort foods, soups, dumplings, and vegetables that have fallen out of favor with gourmets but are loved by many. The previous owner even added some of her favorites cut from newspapers (one of the clippings has a Defense Bond ad on the back) and from her family.
The recipes come from a time when chicken was hard to come by in the city (City Chicken recipe, page 77), bread and rolls were made with cake yeast, lard, and didn’t come from the grocer’s refrigerated section (Parker House Rolls, page 18), and Butterscotch Pie was made on Saturday for a proper Sunday dessert (Best Butterscotch Pie, page 212).
The fun part of the cookbook isn’t so much the recipes but the glimpse into life before World War II, before rationing, before the changes that swept through the world during and after the war.
In all, it’s a fun book, kind of like watching an old Fred Astaire movie.
Post by Eileen from GoofingOff.etsy.com
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