Looking through my grandma's old cookbook and found a weird note about sugar

I was copying her apple pie recipe from her 1973 church cookbook yesterday, and in the margin she wrote 'cut sugar to 1 cup, the 1945 version used 1.5 cups and was too sweet.' I had no idea wartime rationing changed recipes like that, and it made me wonder what other old family recipes got tweaked for reasons we forgot. Has anyone else found a note like that that explained why a recipe is the way it is?

2 comments

2 Comments

mark_mitchell14h ago

That note about cutting sugar for wartime rationing is so cool. I found something like that in my mom's old recipe box, a cookie recipe that used mashed potatoes instead of butter, and it totally explained why they were always a bit dense.

sean_torres7113h ago

Mashed potatoes in cookies is a wild find. My grandma's old war cake recipe used bacon grease instead of shortening, and honestly, it gave it a flavor you just can't get now. Those old workarounds are a cool piece of history, even if the texture wasn't always perfect. Have you tried making that cookie recipe as written, just to see how it turns out?