To Mum, with love……

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So I have spent many hours over the past few years going through cupboards, drawers, shelves, boxes, you name it – if it’s capable of holding ‘things’ it’s able to be surveyed for reduction. These days I’m even more decisive than ever when it comes to decluttering/tossing/recycling.  Anything and everything comes under scrutiny – if it’s sitting still long enough I give it the once over 🙂

My mother was not the best cook and certainly didn’t encourage us in the kitchen so I had nothing to build my cookery skills on, which meant when I married I had to learn to cook pretty quickly.  I used to copy recipes out of the paper, then later pick up used cookery books from the op shop.  Once I was back at work the buying progressed to big glossy ones about all sorts of ways and means of turning raw ingredients into delicious looking meals.  It sort of got out of hand and like Topsy the piles of them grew.

About this time in 2011 things came to a head the day this happened and I had to turn my eye to decluttering even my cookery books.  Even now I grimace/laugh when I look at the pictures in that post 🙂

https://cranethie.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/cookery-books-anyone/

Move on to this past Sunday and we were enjoying a visit to a son we didn’t get to see at Christmas when he asked me if I could use various things as he was having a clear out – ‘oh no, thank you very much says I, but I’ll put them in the op shop for you”

Then he turned around and presented me with these.  Five basic 500 recipe books (circa 1960s) I gave him (from my shelves) when he moved out many years ago.

“Oh, he said, and I found these in the clear out.  I certainly don’t need them anymore so I thought you’d like them back.’

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Simple Family Meals but full of ingredients we don’t seem to use these days – like proper butter, tinned potatoes, tongue, haddock, belly pork, pigeon??

Does anyone anywhere cook tongue these days?

14 thoughts on “To Mum, with love……”

  1. Makes me feel as if I might enjoy doing some clearing out – but not quite yet. Blessings from Freda

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    1. It’s a bit of a slog at times Freda but a good feeling when I realise someone else could get enjoyment from something I don’t need anymore

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  2. Tongue? Just the thought … pigeon …
    That would be at least a couple of “no chance”
    Clearing out – enjoy that little chore, I am leaving mine to my children in my will …

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  3. Clearing out is a big job. I’ve told our daughter that she better hope we downsize before we die because she will have soooo much work to do. She’s an only child. Maybe…

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  5. Tongue? Shudder. I grew up in the ‘eat everything on your plate’ school. Which was enforced. With one exception. When I rejected tongue because I could feel it tasting me as I was tasting it my father let me off.
    About to start a book cull here too. And might even get to the cookbooks as well.

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  6. I remember that series of cookbooks!!!! Mine have long gone, but aren’t they a wonderful example of a ‘social history’? I have never knowingly eaten tongue, lol, but you never know it might become trendy like other humble cuts…pork belly, lamb shanks/ shoulder???

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  8. Can’t say I have ever liked tongue Cathy but my mother and one of my cousins loved it. I do have a passion for collecting cooking books though. Should say HAD a passion because now more and more I go to the online food blogs for most of my ideas. I can’t bring myself to get rid of the books yet, though I know the time will eventually come. I have started decluttering and will return in earnest now that it’s the new year. Which brings me to wish you A Very Happy New Year. Thanks for stopping by my blog when I was on vacation. I will have another instalment up tomorrow.

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  9. My step mother cooks tongue and uses it cold for sandwiches. I don’t think I could eat it now but thirty years plus ago, I quite liked it. I am surprised recipe books are still hanging on. We used one for the first time for ages a couple of weeks ago, but could have found the same on the net just as easily I suspect. See next Sunday’s post for what was cooked.

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  12. I think decluttering, when done in the right frame of mind, is tremendously helpful. I was just thinking the other day that, although we downsized quite radically two and a half years ago when moving from Aberdeen to Glasgow, I cannot think of a single thing that we got rid of that I regret. As for tongue – well, it’s yet another reason for me to feel glad that I am a vegetarian! Cooking is a challenge for me, generally, but luckily my darling husband loves to shop and prepare meals for us. Thanks for your kind comment on my blog. Even if I do say so myself, the Dafter is delightful.

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