"Chris" > wrote in message
ups.com...

> I was recently given some reprinted nineteenth
> century cook books ... The language of some
> of them is rather "quaint", but does anybody
> know if any of the recipes are any good by today's
> standards?

Sure, depending on the recipe, of course. A number of "today's" recipes are
quite horrifying to my taste, so mileage is always going to vary.

> Are any of them worth attempting? I am new
> to cooking and if I tried some of these recipes
> and they didn't work out I wouldn't know if it
> was just because it was an old-fashioned recipe
> or if it was me that had messed up.

Many old recipes are worth trying. However, a lot of them are predicated on
the idea that you already know how to cook -- that you have a certain
knowledgebase which, if you're new to cooking, you may not have.

If the recipes make sense to you and you can figure out quantities (if
you've got specific quantities listed, your recipes are probably not so very
old), you might find it fun to experiment.

-j