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My grandmother would put food in the oven before turning it on. When the timer would go off, she'd be frustrated that the food was dehydrated and undercooked, so she'd try her best to salvage it by starting the timer again for the same amount of time. Then she'd ask "what smells funny?" before pulling the food out from the oven, and complaining that the recipe was bad.

She never cooked before she got married, but she was married for somewhere around 70 years.

70 years.

In 70 years, she was never able to understand the concept of preheating the oven. When I was a child, she'd come over to my parents' house. If my mom was preparing dinner, and the oven was preheating, my grandmother would turn off the oven and tell my mother that she shouldn't leave the oven on. My mom tried so many times to explain preheating the oven, but my grandmother insisted that it was a waste of energy.

It can't be overstated how many of those recipes were some con to sell canned shit that Grandma cut out of a magazine. There's very little "in the old county we cooked like this..." that made it through the Boomer food filter. Best case scenario is it's Betty fucking Crocker.

I had an elderly aunt that made "oyster stew" on special occasions. The recipe was as follows:

One gallon of 2% milk
One 16 oz. jar raw oysters with juice
Salt and pepper to taste

That's literally all that was in it. She'd mix it together, heat until steaming, then serve. Just a big pot of hot, oyster scented, salty milk, served with oyster crackers. Everyone hated it and none of her children carried on the tradition.

That recipe deserved to die.

Edit: oops, broken line breaks.

Case in point:

My grandma hand-wrote down all her recipes for her daughters before she died. A few years ago I decided a nice gift for all of them would be to transcribe the recipes into a printed book. While trancribing the recipes I realized that 80% of her dishes were just variations of ground beef, cream of mushroom soup, oleo, and shredded cheese.

Some family recipes are heirlooms. Others are evidence.

That's the one really positive thing about the internet. One doesn't need a grandma who could cook to have access to good recipes any more.

My dad couldn't cook rice for shit. Always put way too much water in the rice cooker. On his last Thanksgiving, he made rice with something that turned it pink, honest to God not sure if he used food dye or something else.

And I'm convinced my hatred of liver ties back to how he'd drop beef liver in various soups. I'd never know if the meat I was biting into was goat, turkey or liver until it was too late.

He also gave us food poisoning twice. Yeah, he was a shit cook. Fortunately his cooking died with him.

Is it weird that I can't recall my grandmother ever cooking for me? She may have at some point, but there was never any special reverence for her cooking the way I hear a lot of families have. As far as food goes, my strongest memories are about how she'd keep a cup of jelly beans in her car. I was always excited to ride with her because of it, haha.

The big deal cook in my family is my dad, who would have everybody lining up for his chili when he'd cook food for games and fundraisers. He became known for it. When a home game was coming up, football players would ask my marching band brothers if our dad would be cooking for it.

It's interesting too, because despite being born in a foreign country, and nearly my entire extended family being of the same culture, he doesn't cook in that style. His recipes are entirely his own. The key difference is that he uses a lot of sorrel, which is rare in the US but very common in the country he's from. We grew it in our backyard garden, and he gifted me a potted plant of it when I moved out.

I used to get annoyed when he'd invite himself to join me whenever I cooked... but I miss it now.

Grandma’s cookbook had two categories: comfort food and culinary crimes.

My Irish American grandma on my dad's side had two recipes. 'Roast Butt ', some pale greasy meat that was boiled until it was falling apart, yet still resisted cutting and chewing once it cursed your plate: the left overs of this were tossed into a pot with a can of La Choy 'Oriental Style Vegetables' and a bottle of some sweet sauce and dubbed 'Chop Suey', which was probably from a recipe she got out of an ad in the back of a TV guide in the 60s.

The woman could boil a mean potato, though.

My Oklahoma dust bowl era meemaw never really cooked anything that didn't come from a can, but she baked bread and 'English Muffins' from scratch that held up well when frozen.

The bread was really dry and tasteless unless you really slathered on condiments. The 'muffins' were flattened little lumps of dough that were as dense as a dying star, not a single nook or cranny in sight, with a chewy raw consistency not unlike chewing gum.

I actually liked those a lot, and was disappointed later in life when I had store bought English Muffins, which were more like a mutant crumpet than anything else.

My mom and sister have the recipes, but neither have attempted making them. I'm afraid to read them because they'll probably just say:

One box Jiffy baking mix, water, salt. Bake until done.

My grandparents ate boiled potatoes with boiled vegetables and watery meat. When I lived at my parents we often at the same. Thank god that we've adapted the cuisine from countries that actually discovered that food can have taste

My grandma lived through the depression, her cooking was god awful, I had to teach my mom how to cook and season food. She didn’t know why people used paprika.

Great depression, to rationing to factory farm byproducts and processed food.

Utah, is it?

The Jello thing must be American.

In the UK we made everything with potatoes and Spam.

yeah, depression / ration era cooking for anyone not of reasonable wealth was pretty bad, and they stuff they dreamed up on the far side where they were no longer rationed.

My grandmother took a pack of 15 bean soup, added butter beans and lima beans, the broth was basically butter with a touch of milk/cream and a touch of salt. Then a dish of Mrs Weiss kluski noodles also served in butter occasionally with a little chicken. My father always raved about it.

Funny part, she always complained about how long it took her to make the noodles, told us all they were hand made. After going up there for over a decade, one day she left the bag in the sink. That dinner was a HOOT

I grew up in the 70s with casseroles that would make your god cry.

If I’m diagnosed with cancer, I’m blaming old-timer cooking. Some things should be left in the past.