Endangered Recipes: Too Good to Be Forgotten

by Lari Robling, Mark Thomas (Photographer)

Great recipes are family treasures and America’s culinary legacy. But what should be enduring heirlooms are easily lost—gone out of fashion, or locked up in one cook’s recipe box. Endangered Recipes showcases dishes in danger of extinction—homey favorites, the kind of food eaten on the summer porch, at the neighbor's house, or with your grandparents. Lari Robling unearths almost-forgotten classics such as Welsh Rarebit, Green Goddess Dressing, and French Onion Dip. The recipes she’s collected reflect the extraordinary range of American cooking, from Parker House Rolls to Crispy Fried Chicken to Rice Pudding. This new paperback edition includes 80 recipes, along with Robling’s cooking memories and great food stories, sidebars that spotlight people who are "recipe rescuers," and a guide to preserving your family’s food legacy. Now is the perfect time to begin saving—and savoring—these beloved dishes.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published October 7, 2003

Reviews

[Crystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

The recipes were good, but there were not enough pictures!

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok, my biggest problem with this is that I won't make any of the recipes that I don't already. There's often a reason that they're not made very often any more, and often that reason is because they're so incredibly heavy; just reading them makes me shudder. (A whole stick of butter and 1 1/4 C dark brown sugar for one meal's worth of salmon?!)

But I did keep reading, trying to find something interesting and adaptable. And I found a couple that seemed intriguing, but those were among the majority that didn't have pictures. I don't understand cabbage and noodles. Many too few pictures.

Neat little stories. Good for ppl who don't stop to think things like 'hey, I bet I can make my own tomato soup' and need the reminders to do so.

If you want traditional simple recipes, pick up the fundraiser cookbooks at church bazaars, yard sales, thrift stores.... My GR friend Debbie gave me some she'd collected, and with the ones I've found secondhand, I have a trove that Lari should thrill to raid. You could, too. Or, you can just Google your memories; some blogger has surely captured what you're nostalgically yearning for.

[May · Rating 2 out of 5]

I find this collection of recipes to be slightly amusing. I highly doubt that crab cakes, macaroni and cheese or peach ice cream are "endangered" or out-of-fashion. I think the simple ingredients and simple preparations that can be used are "endangered" though. I suspect that a number of the recipes such as Korean beef buloggi are simply too watered down for the "North American palette." This book is needless to say, a quick skim for the curious but for those who love to cook, many of these recipes will be all too familiar in the sense that they can be found in many other cookbooks and in many cases, upgraded in terms of flavour and ingredients.

[Tracy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book seemed kind of half-assed. It was unclear why these specific recipes should be considered the most endangered ones out there. Some of the recipes, like chiles rellenos, are actually fairly popular now. I got the sense that the book was just a collection of recipes from the families of the author and her friends, in which case it could just as well have been titled "Special Recipes from My Special Family," printed at Kinkos, and bound with plastic spiral binding.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an odd little book. It almost seemed like a self-pub. None of the recipes were more than truly regional things, belonging to friends and family members of the author. And it was organized very oddly, with chapter titles like "Messy Foods" and "Rainy Days".

That being said, I of course, found recipes to copy down and try, so we'll see if they're worth it.

[Cissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm enjoying this cookbook a lot, both for reading and cooking. It's great fun to browse! The recipes I've tried have worked out well, too. For example, the Mac & cheese variant was interesting and very tasty, and I'm now using parts of it in my go-to version.

This is straightforward American comfort food, for the most part.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far, we've made the bulgogi, kugel, boston baked beans, brown bread, and the cinnamon rolls, and they're all awesome. Highly recommended.

[Ellenh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book so well, I bought a used version on Amazon.