Good Housekeeping Classic Home Cooking: 300 Traditional Recipes for Every Day

From the description:

Home cooking never goes out of style—and neither do these dishes, from Southern Fried Chicken to New England Clam Chowder. Good Housekeeping presents the best of traditional American cuisine in one big, beautiful book, complete with delectable photos and the history of each dish–and now availabe in paperback. These are the time-tested, classic choices that families love and home cooks keep coming back to again and again, like Barbecued Ribs, Skillet Cornbread, and Strawberry Shortcake. Historical sidebars inform and entertain the reader with information on a variety of culinary subjects, from Friday Night Fish Fries to Victory Gardens.

My Take:

Who can beat home cooking, reminiscent of what our parents and grandparents made?  Good Housekeeping Classic Home Cooking is chock full of all the wonderful recipes from the mid-20th century.  They are in the same vein as other cookbooks of the era that I’ve reviewed, such as Parent’s Magazine Family Cooking, Just for Two, Big Basic Cookbook and A Cup of Comfort.  The recipes are not always healthy or good for you, but they really are the epitome of warm family and childhood memories.

I really love all the wonderful history and background stories of all the recipes.  Very similar to A Cup of Comfort’s descriptions and where they came from. Good Housekeeping does a remarkable job of hunting down the origins of the recipes, often going back to previous centuries and other continents. They show how a recipe changes over history, time and place. What other cookbooks show a recipe coming from a distant island?

The recipes can be made healthy and substitutions be made, however that somehow feels sacrilegious to the original recipe authors and creators. If you’re ever feeling nostalgic, there is certainly no harm in making some comfort food now and then.

I would give four stars. Great history, but not healthy recipes.