Columnist John Moore collects cookbooks. Especially ones with a family touch. Courtesy John Moore

The transition to digital is understandable in some areas. Watching old movies is easier online. But when it comes to reading, I still prefer a hard copy. A book.

Especially when cooking.

One of the most heartbreaking things to see is someone selling their mom’s or grandmother’s cookbooks. But I see them all the time. And I buy many of them. Especially the ones that still have note cards and slivers of paper wedged strategically between pages where someone’s preferred recipe lived.

“Bill’s favorite.” “Christmas.” “Easter morning.”

All indications of someone who paid attention, perfected, and repeated efforts, so that she could see happiness on the face of someone who meant the world to her.

In the small kitchen of the red brick house on Beech Street in Ashdown, Arkansas, my mother made the same things for the same moments, over and over.

Her salad with water chestnuts, banana pudding, chocolate pie, and German chocolate cake, were all requested. Later, they were expected. People migrated to these dishes. Because they knew how good they were.

That’s why seeing someone’s culinary efforts discarded makes me feel responsible for at least saving them from the dustbin. Hopefully, recreating some of them, just to see what made them special to someone, who is likely now gone.

Thrift stores and estate sales are prime spots for cookbooks, but another treasure they sometimes offer are recipe card boxes.

If a lady took the time to handwrite a recipe and put it with the others she highly-valued, it’s a safe bet that the entire box is pretty close to golden.

Same is true for any church or social group’s book of recipes. If ever a woman wants to impress, it’s when her church or civic organization is putting together a cookbook to sell as a fundraiser.

This is especially true for church. A church social is where every Southern lady will bring her A game. There’s no way that any recipe that was provided in a friendly-yet-competitive effort, that a macaroni salad, bread, muffin, or casserole, won’t be right up there with some of the best you’ve ever sampled.

In the 60s, ladies weren’t limited to just church events to show off their best dishes. Tupperware parties, bridge games, and other gatherings also featured the best, including dips, snack trays, and fondue pots.

As a kid of that era, I recall being allowed to make a small plate, take it to the Formica dinette set, and munch on refreshments. The deal was, we had to agree to disappear back into our room while the ladies socialized.

My wife gets tired of me bringing home more and more cookbooks. I don’t blame her. The bookshelves in our home, which are extensive, are way past overflowing. But I can’t help myself.

I have a long-term relationship with insomnia, so I have time to thumb through book after book. Each were once held by someone’s mom, grandmother, or great grandmother.

Reading the notes in the margins and on the cards that were left is sometimes funny, but often tender. I know that likely the last time this page and scribbles were read were by someone who has departed this life. Someone who was making this dish for the last time.

If I’m honest, some of the recipes are ones that I wouldn’t touch. Anything with anchovies, celery (I’m allergic), or Jell-O is absolutely a no-go.

I still see recipes for Jell-O that recommended to be infused with everything from fruit, to vegetables, to meat.

I do not know why, nor understand why ladies started shoving things into Jell-O, which is one unholy union. SPAM and Jell-O should never wed. And none of us should ever agree to eat it, because that just makes people believe we like it.

Think Andy and Barney, and Aunt Bea’s pickles.

But I do believe that a sincere effort to continue making and enjoying recipes from not just our past, but others’, is a great way to bring us closer together.

I’ve told my wife which recipes I’d like served at any gathering after my passing. It’s a way for those close to me to know which of their dishes were favorites, and for me to impart something special that hopefully will live on after I’m gone.

So if you make it to my post-life party, try my wife’s macaroni salad, my mom’s chocolate pie, my mother-in-law’s yeast rolls, and my own brisket recipe.

And at my estate sale, pick up some of the cookbooks. It’ll be your turn to keep them around.

By John Moore, author, Puns for Groan People and Write of Passage: A Southerner’s View of Then and Now Vol. 1 and 2, are available on his website TheCountryWriter.com, where you can also send him a message.

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