Lost Recipes: Meals to Share with Friends and Family: A… (2024)

This is a good cookbook of simple homestyle comfort food.

Update: The Lemon Pudding Cake and the Country Captain were very good and easy to prepare. It's summer in Tucson and I don't feel like fussing too much in the kitchen. While both dishes used the oven, they did fit the bill for easy and good.

Marion Cunningham is a legendary food personality and her passing in 2012 was mourned by many in the culinary world. This book was published in 2003, and her down-to-earth personality comes through in the introduction to each recipe. These recipes are considered "lost" in that they are no longer the "go-to" recipes people reach for when considering what to prepare - whether it be breakfast, dinner, or dessert. Most of these recipes are not ones I would make due to my family's dietary issues, but Marion discusses them fondly in a way that makes you feel you are sitting at the table with a beloved grandmother as she turns the pages of a food-spattered cookbook, reminiscing about meals prepared and eaten long ago. I think in addition to sharing these recipes, her purpose for writing this cookbook was to encourage people to cook "from scratch" again - as she tells the reader, "There is nothing like the satisfaction of sharing with others something you have cooked yourself."

The book itself is attractive, with a nice pocket on the inside cover for tucking in your own recipes and notes. And I found at least half a dozen recipes in the book that I'd like to try.

If you enjoy reading cookbooks, I encourage you to read this one, especially for the opportunity to imagine an earlier, less complicated lifestyle. The back cover says these classic recipes include "many simple-to-make, good-tasting, inexpensive dishes from the past that taste better than ever today." How can you resist?

More like "standard recipes". If you have five cookbooks in your kitchen, plus a few family recipe cards, I'd almost guarantee you you have all these recipes already.

I was looking for actual "lost" recipes, not Corn Chowder, Scalloped Potatoes, and Green Onion Pie (which I was excited about until I read the ingredients and realized it was just a standard quiche).

If you've never cooked before, hate blogs, and want a simple, fairly good-looking book to eat from, this is probably a good bet.

Published in 2003, this book focuses on bringing families back to the dinner table by focusing on recipes the author considers "lost" to American families. A few recipes I was unfamiliar with, but most are ones that have been part of our meals forever, or at least I know that families in some areas of the country eat those foods. I did enjoy some of the historical comments throughout the book.

I loved the nostalgic pictures but I especially love the quotes. If ever you wondered about the importance of gathering the family around the table for a meal...just read this! I can't say there are a lot of recipes I will make but that to me is was really not the purpose.

I like this new book not just for the recipes, or for the clever format, but for the sprinkling of quotes that assert cooking is an art, and one essential for the growth of the human spirit. A book to give anyone beginning a marriage, or a family or… well, anyone.

Very nice book with broad range of classic americana offerings. I liked the historical notes of where the recipe came from and when it first appeard.

Marion Cunningham is one of my favorite cookbook authors for a sensible, home cook practicality feel. She doesn't often have gorgeous photo spreads or even illustrations are sparse. What she always has in her cookbooks is clear instructions, generally easy to find ingredients and an emphasis on making time-tested recipes. These are primarily what I think of as a sort of white-euro heritage American recipes that my mom and grandmother might have made. Here is your meatloaf and chicken and dumplings, there a scalloped potato or southern green beans. A bit of cheese fondue and popovers or a bread pudding dessert get equal billing with a tomato aspic. The 1950's thru the 70's as well as far before and a bit beyond live on in what many would deem comfort fare.

As a vegetarian, there are many recipes here I will never make, but the creamed corn was an Easter dinner hit. There is a chapter devoted to, as Marion labels it, "yesterday's sides, today's vegetarian mains". Enough vegetarian sides throughout the book or easily adaptable recipes make it worthwhile to own this one. While The Breakfast Book remains my favorite Marion Cunningham book of all time, Lost Recipes will surely remain in a place of use on my cookbook shelf.

Yep, I read cookbooks front to back, especially and particularly if they are written by Marion Cunningham. Since reading The Breakfast Book back in 1990, I’ve been a fan and was thrilled to find this book in beautiful condition at a thrift store. Her conversational style and good old-fashioned dishes make her cookbooks into true treasures. Ironically, I’m not much of a cook, but I love how easy she makes it seem, even on the dicey recipes. I’m going to attempt to really dig into this one and see what I can create. Marion makes me feel I can do it.

All kinds of good recipes in this one!
And written by America’s mom.....Mrs C.! (LOL)

I chose this book as a gift, then decided to keep for myself.
yes, it has basic recipes like my Mother's American Cookbook.
not just recipes, but how to prepare. Quotes and format are nice too.

I checked this book out from the library because I was on a big Fannie Farmer cookbook kick, and Marion Cunningham seemed like a goddess. But now, I am pretty much over her. She has some fun things to say about old-timey recipes, but she sounds like a real know-it-all when she says it. Who likes to take orders from a know-it-all??!

I made the sticky bun recipe (three sticks of butter) and liked how it turned out okay. Not enough to make them again, but there were a few moments when I felt like I was back in the olden days, cooking up some history, etc.

A little preachy but it has at least a dozen recipes I'd try. I have to return it to the library or I'd make something right now. I wish there were photographs accompanying the recipes. Instead there are quotes about the importance of families eating meals together. The best one is the one from a New Yorker article by Francine du Plessix Gray. Otherwise, Cunningham quotes People magazine a lot. I do not approve.

Love this book. It has a super-handy pocket in the front where you can put recipe cards and clippings. It also has some lovely, old fashioned recipes. I originally got this as a gift to give a family member, but I like it so much I am keeping it for myself.

I picked this up because I love her other cookbook. lots of unique recipes that are a fresh perspective with common items. If I had actually made more than one, and had success, this would have been a 5*. But in practice it was a bit too 'out there'.

There are not many pictures in this book, but these recipes are homey and oh so good! Check it out from the library.

Had some good recipes, but honestly I was expecting more. Maybe because I have collected and read so many cookbooks over the years, there was nothing in here I had not seen before.

A good addition to any cookbook collection

wonderful! can't wait to cook my way through this little gem.