In the 1943 edition of Joy Of Cooking, Granny would have a followed the recipe should she desire some vanilla wafers for dessert

She would have donned her baking apron worn from years of use to protect her only Sunday skirt

She then assembled all her ingredients including sugar, vanilla, and egg and butter

She would have sifted the flour, added whole milk and beat the batter smooth. Then she would roll it flat and shape the cookies with a cutter

Pretty soon the aroma of baking vanilla wafers would be wafting through the house

A simple cookie baked in seven minutes with real ingredients and served with pride to guest, kids and spouse

Fast forward 80 years and forget about fooling around in a hot kitchen for simple cookies just buy a box of vanilla wafers at the store

Besides looking at today’s ingredients and having them on hand would be a near impossible chore

For that matter Granny could never bake with the ingredients listed on the side of the box

As most of the ingredients listed sound like refugees from a chemistry class and if not measured properly would probably choke an ox

Granny would become very frustrated trying to add thiamine mononitrate to her batter

And knowing full well that using high fructose corn syrup would only make Gramps a little fatter

And don’t get Granny started on natural and artificial flavors. “What is it?” she snapped angrily causing her false teeth to click
“Vanilla is the main flavor and its not even listed,” she advised. “This gunk would make you very sick.”

“Sorry, I’m not eating anything that says contains mono and diglycerides.” I guess they figure no one will read this list.”

The grandchildren would have already scattered as they could tell by her red face and the tone of her voice she was pissed

Someone should have told Granny before she passed away at 93 that food is better today through modern chemistry and mass production

However after cleaning her grand kid’s backpack and finding a three-year-old store bought vanilla wafer looking like it just came out of the box, she’d have known better by deduction