A Gift Through Time

My great Uncle Tom (my dad's uncle on his dad's side) was born in northern Indiana, but was primarily a Michigander who lived most of his life in the Detroit area, in St. Clair Shores. He served in World War II in the Pacific, like his younger brother, my grandpa. During most of our childhoods, my grandparents on both sides were based out West, so my Uncle Tom and Aunt Pearl, who had no kids of their own, became grandparents of convenience to us growing up, here in the Midwest. They had an old-timey organ on which he plunked somewhat creakily. He had an incredibly built-up model train, model station, and town collection spanning a giant table in the basement. They were wonderful old folks of the type they simply don't make any more, as times have changed. He passed on, in his 80's, probably 12-15 years ago, and his wife Pearl died about three or four years ago.

One year, when were probably under 15, my twin brother and I received, as a birthday or Christmas present, a HAND COPIED Cookie Recipe Book in a spiral bound notebook. Uncle Tom had painstakingly filled an entire 150 page notebook with recipes in his old school, legible handwriting.

I'm not gonna lie. I had long-since forgotten the thing existed. At 12 or 10 or whenever we got the cookbook, I was doing sports and music, and cooking was barely on my radar, to say nothing of baking. (30-some years later, to this day, I STILL don't consider myself much of a baker although obviously I am a Food Preparation Enthusiast.) So the recipe book sat on some shelf somewhere in my folks' house, or in a box, and was lost in time for awhile. Then, before the current madness, I was on a trip with the family down to Bloomington, Indiana, where my folks live. As I'm sure many families experience, there was another routine sifting-through of old materials on this trip, the ol' "Do You Want This? If Not, I'm Throwing It Out" game. I came across the recipe book and decided I'd take it - just as a memento of Uncle Tom and Aunt Pearl, mostly.

Like I said, I'm not that much of a baker. And I rarely touch my cookbooks anyway. I wasn't even really planning on making anything when I took the book.

Then about a month or so ago, I picked it up bored, and started leafing through it. And it's irresistible to me now. Did I mention the 150-page notebook is completely full? And HAND WRITTEN. It must have taken DAYS for him to copy them all out. And the recipes!! The notebook probably contains a hundred recipes and names like Date Cherry logs, Earline's brownies, Texas brownies, Chocolate Almond Snowdrops, Finnish Pinwheels, Almond Nut Balls, Spritz, Delectable Date Drops, Santa's Whiskers, Cream Cheese Dainties, Holiday Malt Chews, Linzer Tarts, Fudgies, Refrigerator cookies, Sponge Drops, Mallow swirl brownies, Molasses bars, Tutti Frutti Cookies, Icebox Cookies (somehow different from Refrigerator cookies I guess), something just called: "Rocks," and the one I finally chose to make today: Potato Chip Cookies, so chosen because it was the weirdest one I could find in the book.

My wife described the recipes as "Depression Cookies" and I don't think she's far off. The ingredients list is pretty amazing too. Some of these call for lard, shortening, mincemeat, molasses, orange rind, anise seeds, etc. One of them calls for 1/4 of a teaspoon of crushed cardamom OR a teaspoon of brandy. It's amazing.

I'm sitting here saying I'm not much of a baker, but this Old Recipe book is giving me ideas, and now I'm like: "Dang I want to try making ALL of them. Where do I get mincemeat?" Today I'm substituting lard for the shortening because the store I was at only had lard, and somehow Utz potato chips felt like the right brand. I will share some pics of the Potato Chip Cookies when finished. THANKS UNCLE TOM!

UPDATE: Here is how they turned out!

There was some lag time to the final finsih because I had a rather hilarious #CookFail when I tried the first time a couple of days ago. I won't tell the whole story to spare myself and my great Uncle our collective dignity, but if you look closely at the recipe in the O.P. you may be able to guess what my mistake was. And Uncle Tommy's. Hey, I said I wasn't much of a baker. Anyway I MIGHT have overdone this batch a little but not terribly so. They're good!