The first thing I tried to make on my own was a pie.

I was about five or six years old, in the kitchen of my grandparent's house and left to my own devices, so I decided to make a pie. I knew I needed eggs, sugar and something to give it a flavour, since I'd seen my grandmother, her mother and her sister make dozens upon dozens of pies before. I also knew I'd need a pie plate, and that the oven should be set where the marks on the little round dial were almost all the way to the left.

Because I'd rarely seen any of the cooks in my family use them I had almost no concept of what a 'recipe' was, much less any idea that I probably ought to use one. Sugar, eggs and chocolate syrup were poured into a bowl, whisked until foamy, deposited into a pie pan and placed in the undoubtedly under-heated oven, not that it had any bearing on the results.

As you can imagine, what I had about fifteen minutes later resembled sweet, chocolatey frittata -- and no, I don't remember if I tasted it or not, but given the rubbery texture that I do recall, I'd wager I didn't. My grandfather did, though, and recommended that I try a recipe next time.

Move ahead twenty-plus years, and I have plenty of recipes. Cookbooks, cooking booklets, recipe boxes stuffed with cards, notebooks filled with handwritten, clipped and taped-in recipes -- I have over 1,200 of them. The oldest dates to the mid-1800s and the most recent was published just this year. The majority of my collection is made up of community cookbooks and handwritten collections. Some came from my family but most have been found in secondhand shops and at yard sales, cast aside by their own families and forgotten. Inside them, the recipes are still as true, the notes in the margins still as useful and the voices of the women who created them still as clear as ever. The purpose of this is to share them with you and let them be heard again. Whether you try their recipes or just read about them -- enjoy!