Recently a friend was talking about using her mother's recipe for Chinese Almond Cookies and not getting the result she remembered as a child. Of course not, when you use sugar substitutes, butter substitutes, fat substitutes, what do you expect? Aren't these un-natural? I think so! And they taste funny too.
Back in the day when all the foods we ate were "sourced locally", we'd never heard of the word, organic, or natural in relation to food. I grew up baking and always used butter. Now when am asked, "do you use butter?" I always answer with indignation, "of course! what else?"
In sorting through my mother's kitchen, I found some really old cookbooks that she had from way before I was born. That is a very, very long time ago, last century. Perusing them, I was happy to see no substitutes for lard, sugar, butter, eggs, etc. What else can there be but the real thing?
Yes, I ate all those things and am still around so I figure they can be all bad...at my age, ok, doctor, in moderation.
So, I decided to share some of the vintage recipes I've found. No substitutions please....
