My mom sent me a scan of my [great] Aunt Gertrude’s bread recipe, probably based on the one she learned in in her high school home economics class (circa 1910s late 1920s in Taney County, Missouri.)
Most of the recipe is practical advice for technique. My grandma (Gertrude’s sister) never formally taught me (or my mom or my siblings) how to bake. Which was a crying shame because she was a damn fine cook! When Bertha let me observe her in the kitchen, her “lessons” consisted of a list of ingredients and “add enough X until Y happens.” She rarely referred to a cookbook. (That said, I still have her beat-up copy of Better Homes and Gardens.)
