When I was a new bride, my grandmother showed me how to make pierogis, kluski noodles, and sweet breads, and I measured the big cup and small cup she used to find out how much was actually used. (1 1/4 cup and just short of a half-cup, in case anyone wondered.)
She didn’t give me her chocolate cake recipe, the one I had been dreaming about for years - a rich, dark, dense snack cake made in a 13x9 pan and topped with a squirt of reddi-whip, the best part of visits to her house when I was young. When I asked, she laughed and showed me the back of the cocoa tin - it was the Hershey’s Best Chocolate cake recipe.
I still make “Busia’s chocolate cake” for birthdays. And tell the story if anyone asks for the recipe.
(I don’t always tell them that I sub hot coffee for the boiling water.)
Use the tollhouse cookie recipe, except use butter, and all brown sugar. Bake until just brown on the edges, let cool completely, as they firm up after cooling. This variation was a bake sale favorite in the 80s. (I got “The Secret Recipe” from another mom.)
I sang an old song to a friend once (The Frozen Logger) and she was very upset - her dad had sung it to her when she was a kid, and told her he’d written it for her. Her dad adored her, but good stories were always more important in that family than dull facts.
…my family actually does have unique recipes/techniques, but I wouldn’t recommend them to outsiders…
My grandmother was so totalitarian, that even a generation after her death, you risk discomfiture if you question her cooking. Unfortunately, she had a nicotine-compromised palate. She compensated for it by doubling or tripling the seasoning in everything, regardless of how inappropriate it was. Even her Christmas cookies came out of the oven already stale, tasting like cigarette ashes, and slightly lard-ish. She re-used her Crisco until it looked like melted yellow plastic with bits of sawdust.
Fast-forward a generation, and I will only make and eat her version of turkey stuffing: Half biscuit cubes, half cornbread cubes, and Tobasco sauce. When I’m feeling fancy, I add New Mexico chiles (run through a blender with broth) instead of bottled sauce. I can only stand to eat macaroni and cheese if it’s thoroughly corrupted with Tobasco.
The other grandma was a grim, cold-blooded nurse who only cooked and ate a ‘pre-op’ diet. We never spent holidays at her house…
