FREQUENTLY
ASKED QUESTIONS
HERITAGE · HOME COOKING · ANTIQUES
Thanks for stopping by Boonie Hicks. Whether it’s a family recipe, a well-seasoned skillet, or a treasured antique, the things we keep often connect us to the people and traditions that came before us. This site is dedicated to exploring these connections through food, history, and everyday life. Below are answers to some of the questions readers ask the most.
About Boonie Hicks
If you’ve ever wondered about an old family heirloom, a handwritten recipe, or how people lived before modern convenience, you’re not alone. Many of us are looking for ways to reconnect with the traditions, skills, and stories that shaped earlier generations.
Through old recipes, cast iron, local history, and everyday household life, Boonie Hicks explores these connections together, bringing the past a little closer to home and discovering what it can still teach us today.
If your interest is cast iron cooking, traditional skills, old recipes, or everyday routines of earlier generations, you’re in the right place.
While cast iron and domestic life are important parts of the site, Boonie Hicks is really about exploring the people, traditions, and household skills that shaped everyday life from the Victorian era through the Great Depression. Along the way, you’ll find historic recipes, preservation methods, kitchen tools, and old-fashioned skills that help connect us with people who used them before us.
Boonie Hicks is for anyone who enjoys exploring the stories, traditions, and everyday experiences of the past.
Whether you’re interested in family history, historic recipes, cast iron cooking, antiques, traditional skills, or simply curious about how ordinary people once lived, you’ll find something here to explore. You don’t need to be a historian or collector, just someone with an interest in the people, objects, and traditions that helped shape everyday life.
If you’ve ever picked up an old kitchen tool, read a handwritten recipe, or wondered about the lives of those who came before us, you’re in good company.
Recipes and Cooking
Yes, the recipes featured on Boonie Hicks are drawn from historical sources such as handwritten cookbooks, newspaper columns, food advertisements, household guides, and other period publications. When necessary, recipes may be adapted for modern kitchens, cooking methods, or portion sizes, while remaining as faithful as possible to the original recipe.
Many of the recipes featured on the site were once prepared in ordinary homes and around family dinner tables. Today, they offer an opportunity to experience a small part of everyday life from the past, whether you’re trying a new recipe, exploring family history, or simply curious about how earlier generations cooked.
Cast iron cookware has been part of everyday kitchens for generations, helping families prepare everything from simple weekday meals to big large family gatherings.
Throughout Boonie Hicks, you’ll discover recipes, techniques, and traditional skills connected to the kinds of cookware that many grandparents and great-grandparents relied upon every day. Cast iron isn’t just a cooking tool, it’s a small connection to the people, traditions, and practical knowledge that came before us.
Whether you already cook with cast iron or are simply curious about traditional ways of preparing food, you’ll find recipes, practical advice, and historical context that help bring these time-tested tools to life.
If you’ve ever wondered how people cooked, managed a household, preserved food, or went about their daily lives before modern conveniences, those are periods you’ll find most often on Boonie Hicks.
The site focuses mainly on the Victorian era through the Great Depression. Through the recipes, household skills, kitchen tools, and traditions of the period, you’ll discover practical knowledge, useful techniques, and a fresh perspective on everyday life that can still be appreciated today.
You’ll occasionally find articles from earlier and later periods as well, especially when it helps tell a story or provide useful context.
Living Heritage
Living heritage is the traditions, skills, recipes, and everyday knowledge that continue to be passed from one generation to the next.
You don’t need to wear period clothing or recreate the past to experience it. Living heritage can be found in simple activities such as cooking a family recipe, using a cast iron skillet, preserving seasonal food, or learning a traditional household skill. These small experiences offer a connection to the people, places and traditions that have helped shape our lives today.
Throughout Boonie Hicks, you’ll discover ways to explore and participate in living history through ordinary things that once played an important role in everyday life. Whether you’re trying a new historic recipe, learning a new skill, or simply becoming curious about how previous generations lived, living heritage offers a hands-on way to experience the past in the present.
History is often told through the lives of kings, presidents, inventors, and other well-known figures. While their stories are important, the lives of ordinary people can tell us just as much of the past. The meals they cooked, the skills they relied upon, and the traditions they passed down all help us understand not just what happened in history, but how people actually lived.
Unlike famous events locked away in books, everyday history is often closer than we think. Many of us have a rolling pin, an old family recipe, a cast iron skillet, or a treasured kitchen tool handed down through the generations. We may use them every day without giving them much thought, yet each has a story to tell.
Perhaps that’s what makes everyday history so fascinating. The people of the past faced many of the same concerns we do today, feeding their families, managing the household budget, making the most of what they had, and finding time to enjoy life’s simple pleasures. When we explore their recipes, tools, and traditions, history becomes something we can understand, relate to, and experience for ourselves.