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So I've got a huge shoebox full of my mother's recipes

I got it from my aunt this week, she's been hanging onto it for years since my mother passed.

I'm kinda dismayed at how half-ass a cook my mom was. Almost all of these recipes are just combining different store-bought products. All her supposedly "homemade" dishes are full of name brands. So many name brands you'd think somebody had been paying her.

Her marinara sauce, that I remember the whole family raving about when I was a child, is literally canned tomatoes, tomato paste, olive oil, and a McCormick seasoning packet. she does say to add fresh basil at the end, so I guess there's that. Why on earth did she feel the need to write this "recipe" down?

Chocolate Silk Pie: Whip a can of Eagle sweetened condensed milk until frothy and light, then fold it into a large tub of Cool-Whip. In a double boiler melt three Hershey bars, fold the melted chocolate into the Cool Whip until streaky. Spread into two Keebler graham crusts and run wooden spoon handle through in a spiral pattern. Refrigerate four hours.

Not a single damn ingredient in that isn't a name-brand. Sheesh, Mom! I know she was a product of the 1950s, but still.

Anyhow, it's nice to have something of hers. She was notoriously camera shy and looks like a deer in the headlights in the few photos I have. And it's nice to have a souvenir of the plastic fantastic times I grew up in.

I'm gonna make her lemon pepper chicken tonight. The secret ingredients are Hellman's mayo, and you guessed it: a McCormick seasoning packet.
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Sounds kinda like she collected her recipes from various magazines. Probably the brand name companies had test kitchens that would get recipes published in women's magazines.

My mother-in-law was stellar cook. We have her recipe cards and in many of them she referenced the NY Times cookbook, Julia Child, Joy of Cooking, or similar cookbooks (she was a stickler for correct attribution). Her versions aren't always identical to the cookbook, but she made her starting point clear.

Your mom may or may not have made "adjustments" to the commercial recipes, and those adjustments may or may not be recorded in her recipes.

One other interesting factoid: recipes cannot be copyrighted. Or at least lists of ingredients and basic instructions can't be copyrighted. We learned this when contributing to an elementary school classroom cookbook of kids' favorite recipes.