I've been chatting with someone who sent me a book, and I mentioned that the origin of the word "recipe" comes from receipt, and until recently (the last 120 years or so) they were called receipts.. Until about the 20th century, when a woman got married, she was given a cookbook, but they were prohibitively expensive. So because it had to last the rest of her life, she kept it in the library, not in the kitchen. Whenever she needed a recipe, she copied it by hand onto paper and used that to cook from.

Barb

Hey Barb, not many people know that fact.  I enjoy reading old cookbooks and cooking lore.  It is very interesting to see how our notions of healthy cooking change over time, and there is a correlation with the medical knowledge of the day.   Do you have any really old cookbooks?