Grandmother Edna Beel Engle made comfort food.

Savory, juicy roasts with perfectly pink centers, complemented by decadent Yorkshire pudding, were among the favorites at family gatherings.

Her cooked carrots and summer squash were delicious, even to this writer as a child.

And her molasses cookies? Tollhouse cookies, step aside.

When my mother, Mariko, and sister Monica gave me a bag full of old stuff they’d set aside for me, I found in it a small wooden index card box.

It was Grandmother Engle’s recipe box, and I would not have been nearly as excited had they presented me with one of my late father’s U.S. Army footlockers full of gold. OK, maybe I’d have been just as excited.

Comfort food means different things to different people, and for me those dishes include a wide range of flavor profiles.

By today’s standards my grandmother’s dishes might be considered old-fashioned, maybe even boring. But to my taste buds, her food was just as glorious as my Tokyo-raised mother’s beautifully lacquered, Japanese-style teriyaki chicken, shoyu-centric with a bare hint of sweetness.

Given my grandmother’s upbringing in New England by British parents, some of the food she learned to cook was from her parents’ homeland. But her repertoire was mostly American. She was born in Medina, N.Y., in 1894, though her older siblings were born in England before the family emigrated.

Her mother, Hannah DeGraw Beel, had received formal culinary instruction back in London, according to Judith Engle Hishikawa, my half sister who was raised by our grandparents.

Judy has been a trove of information in unlocking many of the mysteries found in the box.

Our cousin Bonnie Engle Forrester also added depth to this story. Years ago she found the beginnings of a book Grandmother authored on a typewriter.

Once in the United States, “from a helpful neighbor Mother learned the ways of an American housewife — how to bake bread and can fruits and vegetables. How to cook corn,” Grandmother wrote.

“If at Christmas we had roast goose and English plum pudding, we had observed Thanksgiving in true American style — turkey, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie,” she wrote, adding that on the Fourth of July, her father, “William Beel and family joined wholeheartedly in celebrating their adopted country’s independence from their homeland.”

In addition to the very British roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and English fruitcake, there is a recipe for gingerbread with the word “bully!” penned next to the title, a decidedly British commentary on the quality of the recipe.

Also in the box, recipes for Curly Peters cookies (Icelandic), doughnuts using a cup of mashed potatoes that appears to be of New England origin, various meat and poultry dishes, vegetables and baked goods, and more. There were even canning instructions.

Sure, all these recipes and techniques are available on the internet, but none of it is imbued with the meaning of Grandmother’s recipe box.

Some of the cards were printed, as on a press, and may have come with the box. Other recipes were clipped from newspapers or taken from supermarket circulars or ingredient packaging.

The most prized cards, of course, are those in her own handwriting. Other valuable finds: a spritz cookie recipe in my half sister’s youthful penmanship, and others by Grandmother’s nearest and dearest.

Some recipes did not include instructions, such as her handwritten cheese souffle recipe, or something called “Mother B’s Never-fail.”

“Never-fail” what? Judy to the rescue.

“I did some research and found this in my 1902 book by Mary J. Lincoln. … It’s a basic, old-fashioned cake, very dense, not too sweet,” she said via email.

Judy baked it using cake flour and followed the directions exactly, then chose to set the oven to 375 degrees based on additional research in the cakes chapter of the “Joy of Cooking.”

“It tastes good with jam and fruit,” she said.

Lessons learned as a child often stay with us.

Great-Grandmother Beel taught her daughter a step in baking that Grandmother Engle also passed down.

“I remember that one of her tricks was to put the teaspoon or however much baking soda in her palm and crush it there with the back of a spoon. That way there were no bitter lumps in the baked goods. It’s a good thing to do, and I still do that,” Judy said.

Grandmother wed my grandfather Chester Cassel Engle in 1914, and they were married until death did them part. Their joint tombstone in Hilo says, “Together Forever.”

I can’t help but imagine that the recipe box had been one of her wedding gifts, something she continually added to while cooking for her own family.

And now that box of Grandmother’s treasures is mine to use, to feed the great-grandchildren who weren’t born in time to meet her.