After my Mom passed, I found a recipe book in her things that was unbelievably old. The pages were not just yellowed, but the edges were downright brown. The print on the pages was a bit hard to read, it looked like someone had typed them on an old manual typewriter. There were uneven spaces between the lines and some of the letters were raised higher than others. It was easy to see that this recipe book was VERY old. Unfortunately, it didn't have a cover or any interior pages other than the pages with recipes. No identifying marks of any kind to show where it had come from, or the date it was made. The only clue I was able to derive from reading through it was the fact that each recipe had a name under it. I think this book may have come from my grandmother's church and each of the church ladies must have contributed recipes.
I was intrigued, but unfortunately there was nothing I could do about it. All of my mother's siblings, aunts and cousins have already passed long ago. There was simply no one left to talk to about this strange little book. It looks like I will never know where it came from.
Anyway! Reading though the recipes, I could tell that these recipes were written long ago, like in the 1900s. There are strange ingredients like "sour milk" and "fat" and "salt pork." It made for some interesting reading! One recipe that I saw I knew I wanted to make right away......rice pudding! I have always loved it and I remember that my grandma made some really delicious rice pudding when I was little. I am pretty sure this is the recipe she used.
Ingredients
1/2 cup uncooked rice
1 quart milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup raisins
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 275 degrees
Wash the rice, put in a mixing bowl and add milk, salt, brown sugar and nutmeg and mix thoroughly.
Grease a glass baking dish and pour in mixture.
Bake for 2 hours, stirring occasionally with a fork.
Add raisins and mix, then bake for an additional 30 minutes.
Serve hot or cold with heavy whipping cream.
I have made rice pudding before, but it never was exactly right. It seemed too thick and had a custardy taste. This rice pudding did not. It was light, fluffy and tasted like rice and sugar and raisins. It was yummy! I compared the recipe to the one I had used previously and I found out the difference. My recipe, like most recipes for rice pudding had eggs in it. This is what gives it the heavy, custard like texture that i did not care for.
I was elated! I had not only found a great recipe for rice pudding, but I had a whole recipe book full of "lost in time" recipes for me to try out. I will be sharing more of them on Review This Reviews so please come for another visit and more great old recipes!
