Mom’s Recipe Box

I just ran across my mother’s little wooden recipe box. It seems to fade in and out of my life. This time, I actually took the time to look through it and organize its contents. I also added a few of my own handwritten recipes. Of course, I had to pause and contemplate her handwriting. I’m sure when she wrote those recipes she could not have imagined that someday in the far future her eldest daughter would stare in rapt attention at her cursive.

I just read where cursive handwriting is likely to die off, as the young have no use for it in our digital age. I imagine the teachers have lost heart at teaching it, too. In the 1950’s, we sat for hours a week at our desks made of real wood and practiced making perfect flowing loops. We felt we were joining the adult world and printing began to seem slow and cumbersome and childish. My mother’s cursive is near perfect.

 In my mother’s little recipe box are formulas for making cakes and pies and breads from scratch. I can recognize the contributions of her friends, some of which have their own personalized imprinted recipe cards. In some cases, Mom just gave her friend credit by writing her name on the top. Also tucked among the ruins of Mom’s culinary exploits are recipes snipped from old magazines, fragile with age. Most of them are not dated, but one is from “The Ladies Home Journal,” circa 1959. It must have been considered very precious to have been saved for that length of time. Thus, I carefully fold these relics back into their place, along with a handwritten note to my own daughter detailing the history of this special box and its contents.

The era of Mom’s Recipe Box seems to have passed. On the other hand, if I should ever be unable to boot up my computer, it is best kept in a safe place. I’ll keep cursive copies of special recipes inside, just in case. It’s likely my great granddaughters may puzzle over all those perfect flowing loops.