Listening to old records? Undeniably cool. Wearing vintage-fashion finds from an op shop? Also cool. Well, raise the needle on your record player and straighten up your thrifted ’70s shift dress, because it’s time that vintage recipes have their moment to shine. Just think about it – your nanna never put a stocking-clad foot wrong when it came to cake or biscuits! Now you can follow in her footsteps by literally reading the same cookbooks she did thanks to the slew of digitised cookbooks from yesteryear available on Trove. 

Here are our top tips for navigating your way through vintage cookbooks.^{Illustrations taken from 87 Kitchen Inspirations, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3073112610}
LOOSEN UP Never grated pineapple? Unsure of the physics of it? Same! But quite a few recipes in the cute 1938 cookbook 87 Kitchen Inspirations call for it, so your box grater will become acquainted with this tropical fruit soon enough. Both the Golden Pineapple Pie and Pineapple Sponge actually sound delicious, and if you’re feeling more adventurous, perhaps the Pineapple Mince Pie will appeal? Despite appearances, we’re not talking mince meat (although it’s always worth checking vintage recipes for errant ham or corned beef if that’s not your thing), it’s more of a mixed-fruit style mince pie, but with a tropical flavour because it’s the 1930s and we’re going a little wild. 

NEW SLANG “I’ll bring some Gobbles to your place.” You what now? One fun reason to explore vintage recipes is to learn some new (OK, outdated) terminology. Gobbles are cornflake biscuits with a hint of ginger. By the way, “coconut” is now “cocoanut”. The spare letter dropped off sometime in the past century but we can bring it back! 

SURPRISE RESULTS A lot of vintage recipe books don’t have a photo of the final dish, let alone step-by-step pictures of what to do. But we can embrace this uncertainty. Sometimes, you don’t know if you’re cooking a scone-type thing or a biscuit-type situation, especially when the recipe is helpfully titled Witches Rolls from 1940s cookbook Let’s Enjoy Baking (which is a direct threat, by the way). But… roll with it? Imagine how fun it’d be for each of your friends to pick a baffling recipe from the same book, cook it and bring it to a party as a (hopefully) delicious but if not entertaining mystery dish. On occasion, an illustration of the dish is provided but you’re still no closer to understanding what it is (see Tavern Tasties). ^{Illustrations taken from 87 Kitchen Inspirations, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3073112610}
INGREDIENT BINGO Heads up – lots of vintage recipes call for “shortening” (even salad dressings because olive oil was not available at regular supermarkets). If you’re baking, you can sub in butter because who has ever even seen shortening at the shops? If you’re looking to make the gorgeous Russian Cream Cake from 87 Kitchen Inspirations you’re going to need cochineal to make the icing pink. What is that? Just ground up bugs! (Don’t worry, you can use pink food colouring.) There’s a pretty creative ‘coffee’ recipe made with home-roasted grains for those days when you need a pick-me-up 1930s-style. Yes, it contains more bran than your usual flat white but coffee was super expensive back in the day and if the cost-of-living crisis is getting you down, Cereal Coffee could be the answer. 

TASTING HISTORY Cooking the Chinese Way was the first cookbook written by a Chinese person published in Australia. It’s since had eight different editions, but you can go back to that first 1948 edition on Trove for dishes such as roast duck and beancurd soup. Not going to lie – there’s a whole heap of problematic oversights (the book was written with help from an unnamed “expert Chinese chef”) and filled with quotes we’d understand as containing racial prejudice today, but the tone reflects the period in which the cookbook was written and it’s an interesting slice of history nonetheless. In the ‘foreign food’ chapter of The Women’s Mirror cookbook, you’ll find Keftedes (Greek meatballs), Persian Chicken and German Potato Cakes which were contributed by “representatives of foreign nations resident in Australia”. 

JIGGLE IT Jelly must have been the hot new thing in the 1930s because these cookbooks couldn’t get enough of it. The Lawn Party Dessert seems to be two kinds of jelly served with tinned peaches, which looks cute and seems relatively inoffensive taste-wise. We then move onto Sunset Salad, where grated carrot is served inside lemon jelly and concerningly garnished with mayo and lettuce. The final jelly frontier appears to be Corned Beef Loaf which combines the savoury corned beef, onion and mustard with the very un-savoury lemon jelly crystals and serves this gelatinous mess adorned with hard-boiled egg and tomato. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. 

This article was produced in partnership with Trove, an online resource brimming with vintage recipes run by the National Library of Australia in collaboration with hundreds of Trove Partner organisations. Bring the past to life by exploring Trove to find your next culinary adventure.

This article comes straight from the pages of issue 118. To get your mitts on a copy, swing past the frankie shop, subscribe or visit one of our lovely stockists.