Vintage Recipe Boxes: Love of Food and Family

These little tin treasures are one of my favorites to collect, and very inexpensive!  There is something very home-y and beautiful about the recipe box.  My love of them started with my Mother's.  I remember playing with it as a kid and looking through all the recipes as I got older.

Here is my mother's box.  She purchased it for Home EC. in the 7th grade and had it all while I was growing up.  She's now 74...so it's seen alot of cooking!

This box was full of international recipes, alphabetized by country.  I found it for 1/2 price at a local thrift !1.25

 

I love that recipe boxes are a way to pass down treasured recipes to the next generation.  In fact, I've found several with the whole recipe collection intact and can't imagine someone just giving all that history away.  I need to start trying some of the recipes found in the boxes I've rescued.

I can remember taking out those well-love recipes from my Mom's box.  The edges always held a little smudge of chocolate or batter.  My favorite cookies were called "Chocolate Snapper" and I actually created my gluten free Chocolate Scones after that beloved cookie!

Found this Fall recipe box at Goodwill for 69 cents

 

There is just something about the recipe box and the love of making delicious meals for those you love, family, tradition....all things I treasure today.  I don't have a recipe box, but I do have a binder.  Just doesn't seem the same.  I might have to write down the favorite recipes of each kid, search for the perfect vintage box, and make a recipe box to pass on to them. 

This is my favorite recipe box find.  It's just so cute and cheerful.  And it appears that it belonged to a teacher.  The students Mom's loving copied down their favorite recipes and gifted them to the teacher.  I found this at a yard sale full of "modern" stuff.  It was 50 cents.

 

Whether or not you collect the recipe boxes that once stored a family history of sorts, I hope that you will keep the traditions they represent alive.  A mother, taking the time to cook a much-loved meal and sharing it with her family at the dinner table.  That's something that just can't be replaced with a new trend.  It's something to be preserved and passed down...just like a recipe box.

Ah, how I love plaid.  69 cents at Goodwill