Times Have Changed

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As my recipe project continues, I am struck by the kinds of things they took for granted when writing out recipes.  I just completed a recipe from the 50s that had all of the instructions written out, and at the end it said “top with meringue”.  I have made meringue before, but not so often that I could just pull it out of my head and top a pie with it.  The women who used these recipes would have learned, from a very young age, how to cook the basics of their every day menu, from scratch and from memory.

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