I have two booklets that I have had for years. The first one is
Better Homes and Gardens Our Own Favorite RECIPES. It was published in 1978. In the intro it states: "cheese blintzes direct from the family kitchen in Brooklyn, where they have been served for forty years without the recipe's ever having been consigned to paper. There are other recipes from the kitchens of farms in Maine.
The second booklet is from
The Old Farmers' Almanac and is called
Colonial Cookbook. This was published in 1982. It states in several of the recipes that the recipe came from the Wampanoag Indian Tribe and a lot of them came over with the Pilgrims. One of the recipes in this booklet is called "Molasses Pie." When you read it, it is now called Pecan Pie. The only difference is this recipe used molasses and today's Pecan Pie uses Dark Karo Syrup. The directions for cooking Moose are hilarious. But I can't share it with you because it is now copyrighted. And the same for the BHG recipes. What I don't understand is some of these recipes are a couple of hundred years old. And some of them came from a tribe that at the time didn't have a written word.
How about some stuffed calves ears? The ears are from a moose calf. How do you copyright wild veggies such as Jack In The Pulpit, wild carrots, onions, etc.? The recipe tells you to dig these up, but be careful as the wild carrots and The Pulpit have poisonous parts. There are also recipes written in the Olde English with the "f" as an "s". Makes for difficult reading.
I don't understand how recipes that have never been written down and come from the inside of someone's head can be copyrighted.