Cookbook Casualty

I tried to love the Treasury of Country Cooking, I really did.  It's three cookbooks in a single volume, the oldest one from 1975.  The day I decided to flip through it and tab possibilities, I only found one.  It was for cornbread with cooked breakfast sausage in it.  I don't need a recipe for that.

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood.  These felt like historical recipes.  I like that kind of stuff.  But there were steps missing, or "add the water" when no amount was specified.  Some of the recipes assumed you knew what the finished product was supposed to look like.  And all the canning recipes assumed you knew how to can and didn't need specifics like time or what size jar to use.  The most promising recipes I already have on the blog in some form or have already marked in another cookbook.

My biggest issue was with the editing.  Yes, this is three small books bound together, but each section had page numbers from the original volume.  You couldn't just go to "page 43", you had to find the correct of three possible page 43s.  And the index was per book, not the volume as a whole.  It was too much work to find whatever I wanted.

So, onto the garage sale pile it goes.  That's a big part of this project anyway.  I need to separate useful sources from ones that are taking up space.  I'll thank the cookbook for its service, and move on.