I've been looking at recipes on Epicurious and there are a good number that are relatively simple and don't call for a list of ingredients as long as your leg plus a six-inch heel.

However... the majority are not. The list rolls on and on and you wonder if there'll be anything left in the cupboards by the end. Or they want exotic ingredients like the cheese made from the milk of virgin goats from the Himalayas who have been milked by an elderly lady sitting on a schemmel made of sycamore wood and collecting the milk in pails of beaten silver.

It seems like recipe books from back in the day had recipes that were simple enough to make and contained simple enough ingredients. Although they tended to not be as attractively presented as recipe books these days... hmm...