Settling in to cook a recipe isn't what it used to be. Instead of pulling out a worn recipe from your recipe box, you're probably more likely to pull out an iPad, or a few printed sheets of paper from an online recipe. Nevertheless, we continue to associate handwritten 3-by-5 cards with recipes, particularly treasured recipes. How did the recipe card come to be?
For centuries recipes were handed down orally, but as literacy spread, so did written recipes—although the results were "exasperatingly terse," as Sandra Oliver, former publisher of Food History News, told Slate. But that's because instructions like "bake until done" or "enough flour to make a stiff dough" weren't meant to teach anything new; they were meant to jog the memory. (The cook likely made this recipe growing up with her mother or grandmother.)
But the written recipe really owes its start to the rise of women's magazines in the early 20th century. Nutrition science was a thing, and magazines, eager to reach out to housewives looking for "precision," standardized written recipes, even offering home delivery recipe subscriptions—recipes printed on heavy cards and branded with the magazine's logo—which were hugely popular in the 30s and 40s. Once the written recipe format was established, it was inevitable that women would start writing their own cards. ("Ladies' Home Journal did it this way, but I like to add x, with a little bit of y, because, you know, Grandma used to do it this way...")
And this in turn, led to what the recipe card is today: a way to remember - both the recipe itself and the memories of cooking it, sharing it, eating it with loved ones. Essentially, "the ritual of keeping recipe cards seems to be rooted in the same impulse that makes us keep shelves of books we've already read and snap photos of every vacation we take: We like to remind and reassure ourselves of that which we already know."
Slate asks: can the recipe card be brought back from near-extinction? Is this something our "nostalgia-obsessed culture" might want to revive? What do you think?
Read More: The Rise and Fall of the Recipe Card at Slate
Related: Recipe Cards: Useful or Outdated?
(Image: Flickr member Muffet licensed for use under Creative Commons)
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I'm 29, I cook a ton, and I don't have one recipe card in my kitchen. I think the digital revolution will permanently doom the recipe card to extinction.
My collection of recipe cards of my mom, sister, grandmother, etc are among the items I would save from a burning building. They are treasured and full of memories to say nothing of the stains and spills that they all carry.
I get plenty of recipes from online, but treasure the recipe box that contains cards from both of my grandmothers, my mother, and family friends. So many memories, from the the excitement as a kid when my mom would pull out the card for my grandmother's chocolate chip cookies to seeing the handwriting of loved ones who are gone. Even if they are more convenient, these are things electronic files will never have.
I keep recipe cards for a few reasons. Mainly if it's a recipe from a family member or because I prefer reading it to having to use my phone/laptop in the kitchen (the kitchen's tiny and I prefer being able to have it out all the time for reference but not taking up much space). But there are several non-written family recipes that I've simply compiled into a book and printed.
When I got married I bought a small hardback journal and started writing my own cobbled-together recipes in it, since the brilliant improvised dinner was sure to be forgotten when I wanted to recreate it. I love it. Occasionally when I have some free time I take 10 minutes to put more recipes in. I love that I'm starting a new collection; my mother still has all the family recipe cards and uses the originals when she cooks, so it isn't time for me to inherit yet, but its a perfect time to start my own!
I really don't like recipe cards. There's no room for pictures on them.
I'm 27 and just started handwriting my own recipe cards. I have a binder full of printed recipes, but there's something about the history and stories associated with handwritten recipe cards that I just love. That said, I also choose books over an ereader, us an actual address book and live/die by my wirebound planner. I guess I'm an old-fashioned twentysomething.
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I firmly believe that the best recipe is the one written on a dirty Post-It note with no real directions, just measurements.
I use my laptop for recipes in the kitchen constantly; in fact I keep the charger on the counter because it's n
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...more or less my desk. But if I've made a recipe a few times and think it'll be one of our classics, it gets written on a 3x5 and placed in the recipe box. There's just something about a recipe card!
I have some cards in a plastic box, some random sheets of paper in my mother's Better Homes cookbook, and a ton of bookmarks on my laptop/ipad. I've been looking for a centralized way of storing them, preferably in print, but haven't found the right thing yet. I don't know exactly what I want, but it will jump out at me when I come across it, I'm sure.