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I found my grandma's old pie crust recipe in a box last month
It was written on a faded index card in her shaky handwriting from the 80s. I made it for Thanksgiving, and my aunt said it tasted just like her mom's kitchen in St. Louis. She got quiet for a minute and then told me, 'You know, she never measured the lard... she just used the size of a walnut in her palm.' Has anyone else had a family recipe with a weird measurement like that?
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alice_foster2mo ago
Actually find those old measurements frustrating. My mom's cookbook says "a coffee mug of flour" and the results are never the same. People forget that their grandma's walnut was probably a specific type from their local store. It's more about the memory than the actual recipe.
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terry_barnes1mo ago
Honestly I wonder if those old recipes were never meant to be exact. Maybe the point was you had to stand there with your mom or grandma and learn the feel of the dough, and the "coffee mug" was just a rough starting point. We lost the hands-on teaching part and now we're just left with the confusing note.
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rosek442mo ago
Oh that's so cool! My great aunt's biscuit recipe just says "a teacup of buttermilk" and we've spent years trying to figure out what size teacup she used. Did your aunt remember any other tricks like that, like how she knew the dough was ready?
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