Aunt Lou's Archives

Aunt Lou's archives is a series of old-fashioned recipes from a relative of my husband. She was actually his grandmother's aunt. She was a frugal lady who grew up during the Great Depression. Her  recipe "book" was written on a steno pad with an ink pen. How cool is that! She also used every available inch of space on the notebook. Nothing was wasted.

What we have found most interesting in Aunt Lou's family recipe archives is the use of similar items to describe a measurement. For example, in the old-fashioned recipe, pound cake, she talks about "egg size" butter. Huh? yeah, just like you read it. Well, after much head scratching we figured that butter was sold not in sticks like it is today, but by weight.

My husband being the technical one in the family figured out the measurement by placing an egg in water and measuring the level of the water prior to and after the egg was placed in it. Brilliant!