I just went through 7 decades of saved recipes. Some hand written,

[sinkingfeeling]

some cut from newspapers, and some from colored magazines. They were from 3 generations of family cooks. It was hard to throw away so many.

I'm down sizing for a move and can no longer have 3 or 4 boxes of recipes. Been tearing up and crying all day.

Of course, I'm saving some, but limiting it to one big file box full.

[applegrove]

1. I still regret not having aunt Francis' oatmeal chocolate cake recipe

even though i don't make cake. I didn't think of it at the time we were cleaning out my parents place.

[royable]

2. Can you photograph them, and store the photos electronically on a USB thumb drive?

That wouldn't take up much space and you could retrieve them if you need to. Or pass them on to others, too.

Downsizing is hard. I'll be facing that a lot more in the next few years.

Wising you the best.

[MissMillie]

19. this was EXACTLY my first thought

either photograph or scan and save electronically.

[dhol82]

3. I'm in the process of moving from my house of thirty three years. I have a library.

I am moving into an apartment. It’s roomy but not enough to bring the whole library.
I have been winnowing out hundreds of books for library donation.
I have a large collection of cook books and tons of torn out recipes. I have been able to toss a bunch of the torn out ones because tastes change and I know I won’t be making them anymore.
The books are another thing.
The biggest problem is my collection of Gourmet magazines dating back to the early eighties. I am having a real problem separating from them. I know I have to but, damn it’s hard.

[CountAllVotes]

4. if you come across a good one for molassas cookies let us know!

My dad used to make them and the recipe was on the back of a bottle!

My what a find you have there!

The one on the bottle today is simply not the same!

Sad to lose old recipes!

[Jamastiene]

8. I know one idea that might help you for that.

They have quit making several foods I loved. I went searching online for a picture of the cans of some of those things. I found a ton of cans and bottles (vintage is what you search for to possibly get the right results) on Ebay. One can still had a list of the ingredients listed to try to recreate it. I haven't succeeded so far in recreating it, but it was interesting to find what I was looking for was mainly made of soy beans.

Even on just Yahoo or Google images, if you search for a year you remember or use "vintage" for the search results, you might can find the old recipe. It is worth a try, at least. Good luck finding it.

I hate missing out on foods that used to be so great, because you can't find the recipe. My grandmother used to make a salmon stew, but nothing I have found so far has come close to hers.

[CountAllVotes]

14. Some of the best recipes I have are from the backs of bottles

I have one for curried lamb that chicken works really good for.

I changed a few things around in it and it makes 4 good sized dinners.

Same for the chicken vegetable chowder -- found that one on the back of a bag of "Golden Grain Soup Mix", something I don't think they make any longer.

[Jamastiene]

15. I have memorized a "pizza" recipe I once found on a can of crescent rolls.

It doesn't taste like regular pizza at all. I have to warn people about that, but it is still just scrumptious. You basically use a whole can of crescent rolls as pizza dough and make a pizza like you normally would. It has a different sort of taste to it, but it is still great. I have cooked it so many times through the years, that I have the recipe memorized by now. Of course, I had to replace my oven recently. So, I may have to adjust a little for the amount of time it will take to bake the crescent roll crust, before adding the tomato sauce and other toppings, now.

I add to recipes on packets of various seasonings. Chili-O has a recipe on their package to use the basics of either pinto or kidney beans and tomatoes and ground beef to make chili. I cook some onions and green bell peppers also, after the meat has started to cook, to thicken the sauce up and make it go further. You can really make it go further if you add a few extra things. I used to love Hamburger Helper and do the same thing with their directions by adding onions and green bell peppers, for quite a few of their ground beef based packages. I started using the Velveeta packages later and wow, they were so much better. I still add the extra veggies to them too, depending on which meat they say to add.

[sinkingfeeling]

13. I have a good one for soft molasses cookies call Joe Froggers.

Also have 3 from Briar Rabbit Molasses.

[Clash City Rocker]

5. Wait, you're moving...now?

I take it the move was unavoidable? I hope it isn’t a long distance move. The timing isn’t great. Stay safe.

[Jamastiene]

6. Those sound like something NOT to throw away, if possible.

You didn't happen to find a recipe for salmon stew in there, did you? I'd take that, if I could find a good one that matched closely to my grandmother's recipe. I've never been able to cook it like she did. I know it had potatoes, onions, green Lima beans, and tomatoes in it, but I cannot remember what seasonings and what other veggies it had in it. I know we used to put saltine crackers in it.

Maybe you can justify keeping those. It seems like a bad idea to throw those away. As soon as you get settled into your new place, you know you will remember one of the recipes you threw away and start craving that. I know I would.

Then again, food/cooking is a hobby of mine. My family said they eat to live and my aunt and I lived to eat. My aunt is gone now, but I think they were right about that much. I do seem to live to eat any more. I am eating a plain Italian sub with mustard right now but at the same time I am craving a sub with sauteed bell peppers and onions and olive oil on it. I'm tempted to put the other half of this thing up and sauteing some bell peppers and onions for the other half.

[forkol]

7. Have you considered

If you're not too old school scanning them on a computer into a pdf file and putting them on a USB stick? That's what I do.

Downsizing paper and documents is always a hard thing, but I think this makes it a bit easier.

You should also consider that many of those recipes have been put on the web.

[flor-de-jasmim]

9. I agree - I have an old scanner, but my phone and ipad do a good job.

[procon]

10. We saved our heirloom recipes by scanning them

And transferring everything to a thumb drive. It was time consuming but easy enough for little kids to do so it was a fun family project.

My sister and I picked out some or our family favorites and recipes we remember mom making. We're making a family cookbook that will show the photo of the original recipes with the easier to read printed instructions. We want to have recipes from every family and have it published in time for christmas. Things have been on hold since the virus so we might have to postpone it until next year.

[csziggy]

16. Rather than printing hard copies, turn your "book" into a pdf

You can put it together just as if you were going to print it since a PDF is designed to use to deliver documents for printing. Then send that out to the entire family.

I did that when I re-edited my Mom's genealogies she'd made of both her family and Dad's. I printed copies for the immediate family, then put the PDF online for other family members. I used WordPerfect since that is my preferred word processing program but any good processing program these days will allow inserting photos and graphics and once you are done can "print" to PDF.

Each family can set up their own recipes, then if anyone has the full version of Adobe Acrobat, they can assemble the pages - or as I did, I bought the cheaper PDF editor made by Corel to "stick" pages and chapters together.

I found that some of the next generation and more of the generation after that do not want hard copies of stuff. They'd rather have the electronic versions since they are easy to transfer between devices and don't take up space.

[procon]

17. Most of my relatives who are interested in the cookbook

are from the boomer era. I don't think they have the skills or even a WP software, that's why they are happy that me and my sis are doing all the work.

The cookbook is turning into a heritage project, and includes snippets of old letters, anecdotes and photos. I think it might turn into a coffee table book, put on display so it can be shared and old stories retold.

It's more about the old memories from our youth, a legacy that many want to pass on to their own kids as a gift, even if they aren't into cooking.

[csziggy]

18. That sounds lovely!

That also sounds like what my re-edits of Mom's books were - a copy for her and for my aunts and uncles on both sides. Then a few of teh cousins don't do electronic so I had to print copies for them. Then the nieces and nephews asked for electronic copies. Since I'd set it up as a PDF for taking to the printer (my husband worked at FedEx Office so got a discount on printing and binding), it was easy to make that available.

But a cookbook memoir sounds wonderful and it will be something that family members will cherish. Have fun making it!

[sinkingfeeling]

12. Guys, I'm talking about boxes 24" by 12" by 12". There are

10's of thousands of recipes. It would take years to scan them into digital form. I also had a library and hundreds of cook books. I've got them down to one and a half book boxes.

I think the delivery and loading of my POD is still happening. My living estate sale, scheduled for May 7-10 will probably be delayed. I am moving (eventually) up north to an apartment.

Taking my grandmother's scrapbook of recipes. She pasted cut outs to the pages of a catalog. And my mother's recipe file, plus as many as I can get into a file box.

[northoftheborder]

20. I feel your pain!

The last time I moved I had to throw out my old copies of Bon Appetit and other food mags...

But, I did go through every one, and any turned down corners were torn out.

So, I moved 5 boxes of recipes, those, and others saved over decades...still under my bed...

I did think I would thin those out and save the favorite ones to thumb drive, but still on my "to-do" list. Also, can't throw away or give away all my cook-books. I noticed in going through those that many can and box sizes have changed, or no longer made. I marked all the ones I have already tried and liked. (Many)

I'm insane.



My favorite saying: I'll never die because I have too many things on my list to do!

[sinkingfeeling]

21. I have hundreds of Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines. I don't

think I'll have time to go through all of them. I did stick tabs in them for good things 11 years ago when I was unable to eat during a month of cancer treatments.

[dem in texas]

22. i look for old recipe files at Estate Sales

I love to go to estate sales and when I do, I make beeline for the kitchen to look for a box or folder of old recipes. I don't care if they are written out or torn from magazines. I think I have found gold. True, I will end up throwing many away, but there are always some keepers there.