BRIDES IN THE KITCHEN

Apparently, back in the day, some cookbooks started with the premise that brides didn’t know how to cook (remember this was long before the Food Network came along). And I do know that some cookbooks (“Joy of Cooking”, “The Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook”) were considered eminently suitable for a new bride. I know; my first Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook was a wedding present when I married in 1958. But what could be more suitable or perfect than a cookbook with “Bride” in the title?

One such cookbook was “THE BRIDE’S COOKBOOK” by Poppy Cannon, and published by Henry Holt and Company in 1954—but an identical title was used also by Myra Waldo, copyrighted in 1958 by Myra – paperback copies went through a number of printings. Well, you could have knocked me over with a basting brush when I entered “Bride’s cookbooks” to do a search on Amazon! I was so enchanted, I ordered several of the titles (like I needed another cookbook with “Bride” in the title.)

Let’s go over some of these titles together – maybe you know someone about to get married who doesn’t know how to cook? Could there really be such a person? I have no doubt it was far more common in the 1950s when I was graduating from high school and engaged in a wild dash to the altar, along with many girlfriends—girlfriends whose mothers never let them near the kitchen stove would call me up to ask how to do some of the most basic things – I had been blessed with a mother who turned me loose in the kitchen when I was ten or eleven years old. Not even my best friends had the latitude in the kitchen that I enjoyed – we did much of our cooking/experimenting in MY mother’s kitchen. I quickly discovered – if you could READ you could follow directions in a recipe. My mother’s Ida Bailey Allen Service cookbook became my kitchen bible. But maybe I give today’s mothers and exposure to cooking shows on TV too much credit – why else would there STILL be such a wealth of cookbooks aimed at Brides?

Consider the following listings (mostly from Amazon.com—I did find some but not as many, on Alibris.com:

THE BRIDE’S COOKBOOK, A GIFT FROM THE MERCHANT OF OAKLAND, 1918, unavailable

COOKBOOK FOR BEGINNERS WITH COOKING FOR TWO (AKA COOKBOOK FOR BRIDES) by Dorothy Malone, 1953, mass market paperback 45.00.

HAVE COOKBOOK, WILL MARRY, A BASIC COOKBOOK FOR TODAY’S BRIDE by Ruth Chier Rosen, January, 1957 (no copies listed)

BRIDE’S COOKBOOK by Myra Waldo, 1958 (paperback copies available starting at $1.25. Collier Books published this and my paperback copy has a pink cover).

1001 WAYS TO PLEASE A HUSBAND – THE BRIDE’S COOKBOOK, Myra Waldo,llustrations by Grames Miller, 1961 (Are 1001 Ways to Please a Husband and the Bride’s Cookbook by Myra Waldo one and the same book? I don’t know.)

A BRIDE’S COOKBOOK: A KITCHEN PRIMER BY Peggy Harvey, 1962 new & used copies $12.00.
BRIDE IN THE KITCHEN by cookbook author Betty Wason, published in 1964. (Not listed in Amazon or Alibris).

THE TAKE GOOD CARE OF MY SON COOKBOOK FOR BRIDES BY June Roth, 1969, hardcover $0.23.

HENRY CHARPENTIER COOKBOOK (BRIDE’S BIBLE) – Henry Carpentier, 1970 (one listing $25.00)

A BRIDE’S VERY FIRST COOKBOOK by James Croom, 1996 paperback $0.01 (*this is a booklet; I recognize the title as one from my own cookbook collection).

THE BRIDE’S COOKBOOK by the editors of Bride Magazine, (1969) (used copies starting at $1.00) I bought a copy of this paperback cookbooklet – that sold originally for $1.45! It promises over 200 can’t fail recipes and more than 250 step-by-step illustrations. You know what? I like this little cookbook.

THE BRIDE’S COOKBOOK by Ernie Couch & Teri Mitchell, 1990

THE BRIDE AND GROOM’S FIRST COOKBOOK by Abigail Kirsch and Susan M. Greenberg, January 1996 (new $0.72, used starting at one cent, collectible copy at $3.99)

THE BRIDE & GROOM’S MENU COOKBOOK BY Abigail Kirsch & Susan Greenberg, January 2002, (new $4.74 and used starting at one cent.

THE BRIDE AND GROOM FIRST AND FOREVER COOKBOOK< Mary Corpening Barber, Sara Corpening Whiteford, 2003, $15.00

BETTY CROCKER COOKBOOK (BRIDAL EDITION) by Betty Crocker, 2005 (new copies $18.14, used starting at $6.16)

THE NEWLYWEDS COOKBOOK, Ryland Pilers & Small, January 2006

WILLIAMS-SONOMA BRIDE & GROOM COOKBOOK: RECIPES FOR COOKING TOGETHER by Gayle Pirie and John Clark, March, 2006 (new, $23.19 – used copies starting at $1.06)

BRIDE AND GROOM COOKBOOK: RECIPES FOR COOKING TOGETHER, Gayle Pirie, January 2007 (used $1.23)
THE I DO COOKBOOK FOR THE BRIDE AND GROOM, April, 2007, Celia Jolley et al ($27.00 new, $22.23 used)

QUICK & KOSHER RECIPES FROM THE BRIDE WHO KNEW NOTHING, Jamie Geller, 2007, $24.00.

THE BRIDE’S COOKBOOK BY Edgar William Briggs, published August, 2008, (paperback copies $12.95)

MY DAUGHTER, THE BRIDE COOKBOOK, CREATING MEMORIES IN THE WAY OF FOOD by Lisa Estabrook, July 2008 (paperback starting at $11.23, hardcover editions $15.99 used, or $22.09 new)

THE FOOLPROOF COOKBOOK FOR BRIDES, B ACHELORS & THOSE WHO HATE COOKING by Rohini Sikngh, Dec. 2011 (various prices – $49.75 new, also $30.66 new—hardcover used copy available from $3.50).

I CAN’T BOIL WATER…THE NEW BRIDE’S COOKBOOK, Katherine Jacobs, 2011, ($45.00)
Actually, this list is incomplete. There are probably a few dozen additional titles. And for those of you confused by the abundance of the same titles – it should be noted that “titles” cannot be copyrighted. So if you want to write a cookbook and call it the Bride’s Cookbook, – have at it.

I wanted to mention a couple of other things and maybe charm you with a recipe or two from something of Myra Waldo’s and Betty Wason’s respective cookbooks because they are two of my favorite cookbook authors and I have written about both on this blog. (See January, 2011 of my blog for posts about both of these prolific and interesting cookbook authors. I have also written on the blog about Henry Charpentier.

I have only a paperback copy of The Bride’s Cookbook by Myra Waldo but it’s in pretty good condition as paperback copies go. I have a hardcover copy of THE BRIDE’S COOKBOOK by Poppy Cannon (sans a dust jacket but sometimes you can’t have everything ) – but I hit the jack pot with BRIDE IN THE KITCHEN by Betty Wason with a pristine copy that has a fine dust jacket. And – I didn’t go looking for it; it came to me. A reader of my blog, a retired nurse named Jane, had a copy in her possession – she doesn’t collect cookbooks – and it was my good fortune that Jane wrote to me offering her copy of this cookbook. (It also provided the inspiration for this blog post).

So, thank you, Jane. And just so you know, if you are looking for some other cookbooks to add to your growing collection, these are a few authors you won’t go wrong with…but I noted there are dozens of new cookbooks for brides on the market so feel free to check out some of those, as well. But I want to point out something that (for me, at least) makes those cookbook authors of the 50s and 60s so attractive – it’s just this – you won’t find frozen/prepackaged/streamlined recipes in these cookbooks. They were written at time when whoever was doing the cooking followed directions from A to Z; Myra Waldo’s baking powder biscuits won’t come in a can, refrigerated at your supermarket – her basic recipe for baking powder biscuits can be found on page 187 of her cookbook.

Myra’s recipe for Coq Au Vin (chicken in red wine) has mostly ingredients you will find on your pantry shelves, except maybe for small white onions, fresh mushrooms and some red wine (although I always have red wine on hand. I buy Burgundy wine in a jug and use it strictly for cooking. How else would I be able to make Beef Burgundy on short notice?

Betty Wason’s recipe for Arroz Con Pollo is made with chicken pieces such as legs, thighs, wings & backs (parts of the chicken you can often purchase for not very much money) and most of the other ingredients you will probably have on your pantry shelves This another one of those recipes that you can make a lot, for company, for very little – or even make it often if you are on a tight budget (most young brides I know are struggling to make ends meet—and it generally takes two incomes to do it).

If you would like to try Betty Wason’s recipe (which is popular amongst Californians), here it is:]

TO MAKE ARROZ CON POLLO you will need:

2 cups chicken broth, made with neck, wing tip & giblets (or 2 cups of Swanson chicken broth—or dissolve 2 chicken bouillon cubes in 2 cups of hot water—sls).
4 or 5 chicken pieces, such as a drumstick, 2 thighs, wing, back (or just buy a package of drumsticks or thighs—all thighs would be good for this recipe-sls).

¾ cup long-grain rice
1 TBSP butter
2 TBSP cooking oil (such as canola oil)
1 small onion, chopped
1 canned pimiento diced (or use a 4-oz can of diced pimiento)
1 small tomato chopped, or 1 TBSP chili sauce
Salt

Make a broth with wing tips, neck & giblets of the chicken by placing into a saucepan with 2 ½ cups water and 1 tsp salt. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer, covered, until needed for the rice. Meantime, sprinkle salt over the chicken pieces. Heat butter and oil in skillet (the Corning Ware skillet would be perfect for this)…until it just starts to sizzle (don’t let butter get brown), add the chicken pieces and cook over high heat, quickly, until crispy brown. Remove chicken pieces to plate, turn heat to moderate, add onion, pimiento, and tomato or chili sauce. Cook until onion is soft. Add rice, stir to glaze. Stir the chicken broth, measuring 2 cups. (If much has cooked away, you may have to add water to make 2 cups liquid); add this to the rice. Replace the chicken pieces over the rice, cover the pan. Turn heat as low as possible, set timer for 20 minutes. Dish should be ready to serve by that time. If, however, you are not ready—or your spouse has not yet returned home—place the Corning Ware skillet, sans handle but covered, in oven set for 300 degrees until time to serve.

Sandy’s cooknote: I still have some of my Corning Ware – as does my best friend Mary Jaynne..but this might not be the most available type of top-of-the-stove baking dish available now. (sometimes you can find some Corning Ware dishes at yard sales.) Betty’s cookbook was published in 1964. However, I know there are various types of cookware (such as Pyrex) that can be used both on top of the stove and in the oven. This recipe can also be made in an electric skillet if you have one of those. I think Betty’s recipe for Caesar salad* would be a perfect accompaniment to Arroz Con Pollo but a bag of mixed salad greens—and a bottle of your favorite commercial salad dressing—and you have dinner.

*Betty’s recipe Caesar salad also contains raw egg—we didn’t have the danger of salmonella poisoning back in 1964. For this reason, I am not including that recipe in this post.

In Myra Waldo’s THE BRIDE’S COOKBOOK there is a wealth of recipes and you don’t have to be a newlywed to enjoy them. I like her recipe for Marinated Roast Beef which is made with dry red wine—which I love to cook with (although I don’t drink red wines). Anytime you have a roast beef and there are any leftovers, you have the perfect makings for an easy beef stew. To make Myra’s MARINATED ROAST BEEF (for 6 to 8), you will need:

2 cups dry red wine
2 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
½ tsp thyme
1 rolled roast beef (3 pounds)
½ tsp powdered ginger
1 bay leaf
1 clove garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
1 tomato, chopped

Begin marinating the beef the night before it is to be served.

Combine the wine, salt, pepper, thyme, ginger, bay leaf, and garlic in a bowl. Place the beef in it and let marinate overnight in the refrigerator [sandy’s cooknote: I would cover it with plastic wrap] Turn the meat and baste frequently. Remove from refrigerator 2 hours before roasting time.

Place the meat, marinade, onion, and tomato in a shallow roasting pan. Insert a meat thermometer. Roast in a 325 degree (moderate) oven to the desired degree of rareness, about 55 minutes for rare. Baste occasionally. Discard bay leaf. Force the gravy through a sieve (strainer) or puree in an electric blender.

Sandy’s cooknote: You really want any kind of roast beef to have some standing time, about 15-20 minutes before you serve it, so the juices have time to redistribute. Personally, I like a roast to be more “medium” than rare – just a nice pink. My daughter in law likes meat to be a hockey puck, so we slice a well-done end piece for her. Something great for a roast like this would be oven roasted potatoes and carrots, or even baked potatoes.

I used to whip up an easy chocolate dessert that we called Blender Mouse—but Myra Waldo’s Quick Chocolate Mousse is similar and just as easy. To make Myra’s chocolate mousse, all you need is

2 ounces of sweet chocolate
2 TBSP water
½ tsp vanilla extract
½ cup heavy cream

Break the chocolate into small pieces and combine with the water in a small saucepan* Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until chocolate melts. Cool 15 minutes. Stir in the vanilla. Whip the cream (using an electric mixer) and fold it into the chocolate mixture. Spoon into a glass bowl chill 2 hours.

*Sandy’s cooknote: if you are like me and tend to get distracted and burn things, melt the chocolate in the top half of a double boiler. Have water in the lower half at a low simmer.
Recipe is from Myra Waldo’s THE BRIDE’S COOKBOOK.

Happy Cooking!
Sandy

SOME KIND OF CHRISTMAS FOOL

(The following, with some changes, was originally published in the Cookbook Collectors Exchange, in the Nov/Dec 1994 issue).

“When we were young, there were moments of such perfectly crystallized happiness that we stood stock still and silently promised ourselves that we would remember them always. And we did.” (From the “FOUR MIDWESTERN SISTERS’ CHRISTMAS BOOK”, published in 1991 by Holly Burkhalter, with Kathy Lockard, Karol Crospie and Ruth Bosley.)

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. (From “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott.

This is the wonder of Christmas,
Sleigh bells and holly and snow,
Church chimes and mittens and pine cones,
Warmth from a fireside’s glow.
This is the wonder of Christmas,
Trinkets bedecking a tree,
Tinsel and strings of cranberries,
Children, all shouting with glee.
This is the wonder of Christmas,
Merriment, loving and caring,
This is the wonder of Christmas,
The happiness that comes from sharing.
This is the wonder of Christmas,
See the manger, there, under the tree,
With small statues symbolic of all that
The Christ child would want it to be.

-Sandra Lee Smith

Hobbies come in all shapes and sizes. I have various friends and acquaintances who enjoy hiking, horse-back riding, camping, and/or bowling. Some people collect stamps and call it a hobby, although to my mind, collecting something takes it out of the realm of hobbying and into the jurisdiction of collecting. Or perhaps the two are synonymous. I consulted my trusty friend, Webster, and was advised that “A hobby is something that a person likes to do or study in his spare time or avocation”. Another rare definition of hobby offered by Webster is “A subject that a person constantly talks about or returns to”. I like the latter definition; it describes how I feel about Christmas. Christmas is my hobby.

Back in medieval times, preparation for Christmas feasting began months in advance even though the common folk might only a few hours away from their duties, working for the upper classes and royalty Christmas celebrations would last two weeks, until the Feast of the Epiphany, on January 6th. It’s said that King Henry VIII of England raised revelry to a new high—few kinds could party as hearty as Henry.

Curiously, however, most historians agree that it’s very unlikely that Jesus Christ was actually born on December 25th. There is an interesting book titled “Christmas Feasts from History” by Lorna Sass, (published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Irena Chalmer’s Cookbooks, Inc. 1981), in which the first chapter is devoted entirely to the Roman Saturnalia Banquet. Ms. Sass quotes the poet, Virgil, (70-19 BC) who described the Saturnalia as a merry festival that was the traditional culmination of the ancient Roman year. “Named for Saturnus, the Roman god of seeds and sowing, the celebration probably began to commemorate the end of the autumn sowing season in southern Italy, a time of brief respite from the yearly round of farm chores, a time to pause and exchange good will with neighbors and friends..”

Saturnalia began around December 17 and all work was suspended for seven days…“Romans took to the streets with carnival-like abandon, shouting ‘To Saturnalia”. Slaves were free to do and say what they pleased and a mock king was chosen ruler. Characteristics of what was to become Christmas were already in evidence: halls festooned with laurel leaves, gifts exchanged—often little dolls made of clay or dough—and small wax tapers lit as protection against the hovering spirits of darkness…the week-long festival reached its peak on or about December 25, a day set aside for special reverence to the sun..”

Early church leaders often attempted to substitute a Christian holiday for a pagan one and it is thought that Christmas became the substitute for Saturnalia.

(Personally, I have often speculated that Jesus was born around in March—I think it’s plausible that He was a Pisces, the sign of the fish – for the fisher of men). In any event, the early church habit of substituting pagan holidays for Christian ones does not detract in the least from what it is that we are actually observing.

In medieval times, the court jester, or fool, was often called upon to entertain guests while they enjoyed their meal, along with tumblers and minstrels, and other paid entertainers. Maggie Black, in her book “THE MEDIEVAL COOKBOOK” tells is that “Entertainment was the main part of any feast, especially a great one, and at the end when the alms baskets were carried out to the poor, and the last Twelfth Night toast was drunk, it was to be hoped that one and all could say “that was a good feast. The year ahead will go well!”

Centuries later, I find that I am some other kind of Christmas fool. I’m not likely to wait until Thanksgiving or after to start thinking about Christmas. It’s on my mind all year long.

My childhood Christmases are cherished memories. It seems that our holiday season began with the Feast of St Nicholas, on December 6th. We hung stockings (usually long white stockings of my father’s) and the next day found them filled with walnuts and tangerines and hard candies…sometimes a little toy. I had my own tangerine tree in Arleta, where we lived for 19 years and tangerines always remind me of the Feast of St Nicholas (I don’t remember ever having tangerines at any other time of the year, when I was growing up).

Many years later I had all but forgotten our family observation of the Feast of St Nicholas, part of our Dutch heritage, until one year when my sons were something like 8,5, 2, and 1 years old and turning into unholy terrors as Christmas approached and television commercials assaulted their impressionable little minds with the wonders and glories of toys that every-kid-just-had-to-have. The momentum continued to grow until I was ready to disown all four of them, whose every sentence began with “I want—“. Then I remembered the Feast of St Nicholas. We reinstated the tradition of stockings being hung on December 5th and observed this tradition for many years after. It was something to tide the children over until Christmas finally arrived.

Snow flakes. Pine needles. My grandma’s diamond shaped walnut and sugar studded butter cookies*. Grandma’s homemade pumpkin strudel (with Filo dough made from scratch!); A Christmas tree glowing with bubble lights. Weeks of rehearsing Christmas carols at school, which took on new meaning when I joined the choir. As a small child, the shivering anticipation of being allowed, one a week, to put away pencils and books, while we made cards and calendars and “tie racks” out of construction paper, library paste and cardboard tubes. On Friday afternoons, song books were passed out to the students and we learned the words to “Jolly Old St Nicholas” and “Up on the House Top”, “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem” and “Silent Night”. At home, we bought sheet music and learned the words and music to “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman”. I sang “Rudolph” with two clowns at a Christmas party sponsored by my Grandma Beckman’s club that year.

We took piano lessons and flute and clarinet, and practiced our favorite Christmas songs until everyone in hearing range was tired of hearing them. When we tired of listening to each other, my mother would sit down at our old upright piano and play “Silver Bells” which was, I think the only Christmas song she knew how to play. (My mother never learned to read music; she played entirely “by ear” and was really quite good).

I will always remember the Christmas that my older brother gave me five brand-spanking new Nancy Drew books—the first books of my very own. Such bounty! The first book that my mother ever bought for me was, incidentally, “Little Women”, which I practically memorized from reading it so often.

One year my mother was terribly sick in the hospital—but came home long enough to spend Christmas with us.

We children ironed the wrinkles out of the previous year’s gift wrap; we ironed out old ribbons too. We made our own gift tags out of index cards and those little glue on stickers—the kind that never stuck to anything else. (I wouldn’t say that we were poor, exactly, but we certainly were frugal.)

We did all our own Christmas shopping—my two younger brothers and I, making a once-a-year shopping excursion to downtown Cincinnati where we prudently shopped for cards of bobby pins or lilac splash cologne—or handkerchiefs with our daddy’s initial on them, or one of our favorites, “Midnight in Paris” which came in a distinctive blue bottle that we loved. We managed to see all of the Department store Santas (as much motivated by free candy canes as the desire to cover all our bases since you never could e sure which one might be the REAL Santa.) We carefully guarded our meager pennies against potential shoplifters we had been warned about, and somehow bought presents for our parents, grandparents, siblings and dearest friends. Most incredibly, we usually managed to have some lunch at the Woolworth’s lunch counter—a grilled cheese sandwich with dill pickle slices, and a coca cola, split three ways—was, I think, about twenty-five cents. I should add, we did ALL of our shopping in Woolworth’s, Newberry’s and Kresge’s five and ten cent stores. They had the best “stuff”.

(Once, my childhood friend Carol confessed that she had always been jealous of me on those shopping trips.
“Me?” I exclaimed. “Whatever FOR?”
“Because,” she replied, “You could buy so much more with a dollar than anyone else”)

Over the years I have thought long and hard about those shopping trips which, incidentally, also cost us five cents bus fare to and from downtown Cincinnati. How did we manage to do it? I often think of loaves and fishes in the bible. That was the three Schmidt children shopping for Christmas presents for at least ten people, not counting anything for friends. We always, somehow, managed to have just enough. And, let me add – we didn’t have allowances or anything that frivolous in our lives. Every penny was a penny earned or money from cashing in pop bottles for the two cent refund.

We loved downtown Cincinnati during the holidays, the lights of Fountain Square, the “living crèche” in Garfield Park, all of the sidewalk Salvation Army Santas ringing their bells, and the gorgeous window displays in all of the department stores.

When we got back home with our treasures, we smuggled everything upstairs to my bedroom where we engaged in a frenzy of wrapping. We often ended up at my grandmother’s on Christmas Eve day; eventually my father would arrive with his cousin – my godmother, Barbara, who I only saw during those holidays and always seemed to me to be something like a fairy godmother. We would pile into the car to go home; we would see the lit tree from the street—for we NEVER had a Christmas tree before Christmas—and seeing the brightly lit tree, framed by the living room window, we would just know that Christmas had arrived. We would rush through the front door only to be told by our mother that we had “just missed Santa—he just went out the back door” whereupon we rushed to the back door to try to catch a glimpse.

We’d open the presents handed out to us one at a time by my mother and later, if you could stay awake, you might be able to go to midnight mass with the adults.
What I remember most clearly about Christmas mass is the crèche—the statues of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, finally uncovered (for they had been draped with cloths throughout Advent.)

There was singing and incense and the smell of wet coats and gloves—for it seems that it almost always started to snow on Christmas Eve. The choir sang “Silent Night” and “Adeste Fideles” and “Away in the Manger” – and IF the Baby Jesus was not actually born on December 25, it matters not a whit for we believed in Him and we believed in His birth.

Christmas Day—when I was a young child—usually found us having dinner at my paternal grandmother’s—it’s a wonder to me that in later years when she lived in the two front rooms of the first floor of her apartment house, she somehow managed to fit all of us—my parents, siblings, two aunts, two uncles and various cousins ALL into those two rooms. As soon as we had eaten, my Uncle Al gave us each a quarter for the movies—fifteen cents for admission, ten cents to spend—and then would drive us all to the movie theatre. (We thought Uncle Al was rich—handing all those quarters out so freely!) and by the time we got back, everything would be brought back to the table for a late supper. (While we were gone, the adults all played cards. You knew you were “of age” when you were allowed to join the adults playing cards).

So, is it any wonder that the love of Christmas spilled over into my adult life? That we, in my household, think about Christmas all year long—beginning with the after Christmas sales but gaining momentum around in May when the first strawberries and blackberries ripened and could be made into jams and preserves, cordials and jellies. By August, the first Black Mission figs were ripening on our trees and the grapes in my arbor were slowly turning purple. Around in October, pomegranates turned ruby red and could be converted into pomegranate jelly or a luscious liqueur. Pumpkins began to be displayed at produce stands (and now my youngest son and his son—my nine year old grandson, Ethan—have taken to growing their own pumpkins). From the pumpkins we made pumpkin bread and pumpkin butter.

We searched for just the right presents for everyone on our gift list, all through the year, and I discovered that Christmas shopping while on vacation in July could be a lot of fun, especially if you were doing it with a sister. We were all catalogue buffs and carried bundles of Christmassy mail order books all over the house, dropping thinly veiled hints in our wake. By September, some of my packages had to be wrapped and mailed to meet overseas deadlines—so September was never too soon to drag everything out of the Christmas closet and do an inventory. I make up lists. Extra rolls of film (I DO still take photographs using actual FILM). Sugar and flour and jars of molasses go onto my list. Lots of scotch tape! (and WHAT do you suppose people did before Scotch tape was invented?)

I remember one year—in the 1970s, I think—when the price of sugar skyrocketed to something like $5.00 for a 5-lb bag of granulated sugar—even as I write this, the price sounds astronomical (even though a FOUR pound bag of sugar, on sale, now, is about $2.50). I hardly baked a thing that year and it was a terrible disappointment. For years after, I stockpiled sugar months in asdvance to safeguard against it ever happening again.

Sometime in August, maybe as early as July, I would be digging through cookbooks and recipe files, pulling out the favorite cookie and candy and confection recipes. October is not too soon to start mixing cookie dough, If you have a freezer to store it in and you have a lot of favorite cookie recipes. Some cookies can be baked well in advance—the ones that thrive on aging in a tightly fitted tin or Tupperware container—the Springerle and Pfeffernusse and cut out gingerbread cookies and those decadent rum balls. I try to get all of the cookies made a few weeks before Christmas, so that I can make up gift baskets and fill tins with cookies for neighbors and friends—and nowadays my favorite post office clerks and our mail lady, my manicurist and our family mechanic.
When Christmas is getting close, THEN it’s time to make the delicate Spritz cookies, lemon Madelines, and Russian Tea Cakes.

Back in the day – when my sons were growing up – we’d often make several dozen different kinds of cookies; they’d take them to school for their teachers, I’d take them to work for coworkers. We’d make fruitcake bars and peanut brittle, Mamie Eisenhower’s fudge, and English Toffee, and my favorite New Orleans pecan pralines, Sherried walnuts and my Aunt Annie’s Opera Creams, my sister’s Buckeye Balls, Truffles, Caramel Corn—and the family favorites; Kelly’s M&M party cookies, Chris’ oatmeal raisin, Michael’s Butter Cut Out Cookies

(*When Michael was five years old, I stayed up one night until about 4 am decorating each and every Butter Cut out cookie with frosting. I had them spread out to dry on every counter and table top. When I got up the next morning, Michael had eaten the frosting off every single cookie. I’m not sure what happened after that—but Michael told me years later that the sight of frosting on butter cookies made him feel slightly queasy.)

I believe it was that same year that Michael, then in kindergarten, questioned me persistently about reindeer.

“Mom,” he said “Can reindeer fly?”

“Hmm,” I hedged, “Well, I’ve always heard…certainly Santa’s reindeer—you know, Dasher and Dancer and then there’s Rudolph—why do you want to know, son?” to which he replied, matter-of-factly, leaving no room for doubt, “my TEACHER says they CAN’T!” and as anyone who has ever had a kindergartener knows, if teacher says they can’t, that’s the end of it.

When I was an 18 year old bride, in 1958, I clipped some cookie recipes out of a woman’s magazine and then into a 3-ring binder, and a tradition was born. Now, fifty-something years later, I have seven or eight 3-ring binders filled with JUST the cookie recipes, most clipped out of magazines. (I also began using those 3 ring binders for many other recipes as well—there are four or five just for my canning recipes—jellies, jams, chutneys, pickles, preserves, two for cakes, and so on. Now there are over 50 of those 3 ring binders stuffed with recipes.

We built our own memories, my children and I. We laughingly recall the year my husband & I stayed up until 4 am putting together a hot-wheels-type of racetrack that Michael, then about four years old, had dismantled by 5 am. There was the year that my girlfriend and I and our children made bread dough ornaments that didn’t quite turn out. We had bits of dough in our hair, clothing and all over the floor. (You may have discovered, as did we, that not everything turns out quite like the magazine illustrations, does it?)

One of my favorite stories involves my dear friend, Neva. She wanted to make a candyland house with me one year, such as I would make using a cardboard frame taped together to look like a cottage. Then I would liberally spread the exterior of the house with royal frosting and decorate it with small candies before the frosting dried. (Writing about how I made the candyland houses was one of the first articles I sold to Tower Press magazines). It would be some years before I worked up enough nerve to actually make a real gingerbread house. Anyway, Neva wanted to make a candyland house too – except for one thing – she wanted to make hers a castle. (it actually went with her house that looked somewhat like a miniature castle). No problem, I assured her. We could make a castle. I whipped up batch after batch of royal frosting, running around the house digging up cardboard tubes and digging through kitchen drawers for suitable accessories – while Neva, her daughter and my sons constructed and decorated a castle. It was truly an impressive work of art but I confess to being nonplussed when, some weeks later, the local Valley News ran a story (with photographs!) about Neva and her candyland castle, which – according to the newspaper story—was her “family tradition”.

One year when we lived in Florida, I was tearfully distraught trying to make one of our favorite Christmas cookies – like lace cookies, which wouldn’t harden, or stained glass cookies – that dripped away the stained glass part as they hung on a tree. I also set the oven on fire trying to make graham cracker houses (which we had made successfully in California) because the melted sugar wasn’t hardening. I had a vague notion that putting them into the oven would help them dry out. Instead, the melted sugar dropped all over the coils of the electric oven and caught fire.

Somewhere along the way I began collecting Christmas ornaments. Like Topsy, it just grew and grew, until the time came when we needed a second tree for all the ornaments. I began searching for ornaments where ever I went on vacation and more than once found a Christmas store. My favorite one is in Carmel California. The store is filled with year-round trees decorated with ornaments made by local artisans. Some of these are my absolute favorites.

One year my sister and I were there oohing and ahhing over the ornaments.

“Will you take a check?” I asked the owner.
“Of course,” she replied.

“Do you need to see some identification?” I asked.
“No,” she said, complacently, “Christmas people don’t cheat.”

These are some of my stories; if I thought long and hard I could come up with many more—but I want to tell you about some of my favorite Christmas cookbooks. As you know, I collect cookbooks – and possibly my favorite topic in my cookbook collection are the Christmas cookbooks – along with cookies. A few years ago, a friend set up a database for me and I managed to get all of the Christmas cookbooks logged on before we had to move. There are over 500 of them. But some are really FAVORITES—the cookbooks I turn to, year in and year out. If you need to get into the holiday mood, I guarantee that reading Christmas cookbooks will get you there. Maybe you can write to me and tell me about your favorite holiday recipes or your favorite Christmas cookbook!

I like THE FRUGAL GOURMET CELEBRATES CHRISTMAS and MYSTIC SEAPORT’S CHRISTMAS MEMORIES COOKBOOK; There’s MARTHA STEWART’S CHRISTMAS, (with directions for creating a gingerbread mansion) and 365 WAYS TO PREPARE FOR CHRISTMAS. I like John Clancy’s CHRISTMAS COOKBOOK and A YANKEE CHRISTMAS by Sally Ryder Brady; ROSE’S CHRISTMAS COOKIES by Rose Levy Barenbaum, and my beloved LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK OF CHRISTMAS ENTERTAINING by Dawn Navarro and Betsy Balsley. I love re-reading Mimi Sheraton’s VISIONS OF SUGARPLUMS and Virginia Pasley’s THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE BOOK (1949).

I need to mention the Farm Journal’s HOMEMADE COOKIES compiled by the Food Journal’s food editors and published in 1971—back when I didn’t have hundreds of cookbooks, this was my favorite go-to cookbook for baking Christmas cookies. (In fact, we collected all of the Farm Journal cookbooks back then. I think it was my penpal Penny who got me started on those).

Years ago, the Junior League of the City of Washington published a book titled THINK CHRISTMAS (originally published in 1970 but often reprinted); the Junior League must have done well with their first effort since in 1983, they published JOY OF CHRISTMAS, both filled with great holiday entertainment ideas. One of my well thumbed and spattered Christmas cookbooks is titled TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS, compiled in 1974 by the Junior Women’s Group Pioneer Museum up in Stockton, California. I no longer remember where or how I found my copy which was already well worn and spattered when I acquired it – I DO know I have been making their recipe for Spinach Delight for over thirty years. Another favorite is THE GREATER CINCINNATI CHRISTMAS COOKBOOK compiled by the Greater Cincinnati Citizens Council in 1984; my sister Becky learned about it and we both invited to submit recipes—we both sent in many of our favorite Christmas recipes, congratulating ourselves for finding a way to get them all in one book. Of course, one downside to all of this is that some of your favorite recipes have a tendency to change from year to year. In 1984 I was making Texas fruitcake and “five pounds of fudge” while in more recent years I find myself reaching for the recipes of my youth—the Lebkuchen and Springerle my grandmother would make, or those wafer-thin Moravian Ginger cookies and Pfeffernusse.

More up to date Christmas cookbooks that you may want to search for might include CHRISTMAS WITH PAULA DEEN, published in 2007 by Simon & Schuster, or The Goodhousekeeping little book THE GREAT CHRISTMAS COOKIE SWAP COOKBOOK, published in 2008 (and offering 60 large batch recipes to cook and share) or you might want to look for a Favorite Brand Name 100 BEST HOLIDAY COOKIES published in 2007 by Publications International—both of these cookbooks are well illustrated with hidden spiral binding so they will lay flat on your kitchen counter.

Personally, I don’t like having cookbooks in the kitchen so I usually copy the recipe on my printer and stick it on the refrigerator door when I am baking.
Another 2007 cookbook is SANTA’S NORTH POLE COOKBOOK by Jeff Guinn who also wrote THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SANTA CLAUS, HOW MRS CLAUS SAVED CHRISTMAS and THE GREAT SANTA SEARCH.

These are a few of my favorite Christmas cookbooks—there are so many more! And amongst my treasures are pamphlets and leaflets published by the various gas companies in many different states—some of these were very well done and are so collectible!

And then there are all the gift-giving cookbooks and candy-making cookbooks!
But I see this post has grown very lengthy! However, before I close I wanted to let you know about previous “Christmassy” posts on my blog.

Look for –

Christmas is Right Around the Corner 9/13/09
Homemade Christmas Candies 9/20/09
Oh, Fudge! Making Christmas Candy 9/16/09
Make Mine Light – Fruitcake 10/1/09
It’s Christmas Cookie Time, posted 11/22/09
Christmas 2009 Cookies 12/31/09 (PHOTOS)
MEMORIES OF CHRISTMASES IN CINCINNATI (ARTICLE) 12/9/09
A Few of my Favorite Things, Part 2 Cookies 12/16/09
Christmas Memories 2010

Happy cooking and happy cookbook collecting—
Sandy

“MOUNTAIN COUNTRY COOKING/A GATHERING OF THE BEST RECIPES FROM THE SMOKIES TO THE BLUE RIDGE”

“MOUNTAIN COUNTRY COOKING/A GATHERING OF THE BEST RECIPES FROM THE SMOKIES TO THE BLUE RIDGE” is my kind of cookbook—and I had the good fortune to review it for the Cookbook Collectors Exchange back in 1998. So why am I bringing it up now? Well, you may have discovered by now that I like to talk/write about favorite cookbooks in my collection, whether or not they are brand-new. I like to check the usual sources, such as Amazon.com or Alibris.com to see if the book is available, just in case you want to buy a copy for your own.

“Stack pies and stack cakes, shuck beans and soup beans, cushaw* pie and poke sallet: These are Appalachian foods” we read in the introduction to “MOUNTAIN COUNTRY COOKING”. “From Georgia to Maryland and including the Shenandoah, Blue Ridge, Great Smoky, Cumberland and Allegheny Mountains,” writes the author, “the Appalachian Mountain system is a chain with deep valleys, small farms, and rugged people…The food of Appalachia is based on staples—sorghum, dumplings, beans, pork, greens, corn and potatoes. With these staples we prepare specialties such as Corn Bread Salad, Buttermilk Biscuits and Sausage Gravy, Tomato Dumplings, Pinto Bean Pie, and Corn Relish…”

(*Sandy’s Cooknote – Cushaw is a kind of white squash; it is shaped like yellow crookneck summer squash, only larger. They ripen in the fall with pumpkins and can weigh from 10 to 25 lbs. I have never seen one but I sure would love to get my hands on one of these!)

(I’d like to interject that my mother in law came from Blue Ridge, West Virginia to join her husband in Cincinnati, and I, as a new bride in1958, learned how to make Buttermilk Biscuits and Sausage gravy, Corn Bread and Beans—my four sons grew up on these foods.)

Mr. Sohn says that some regional dishes of Appalachia are virtually unknown elsewhere in the United states (unless, perhaps, you had a mother in law like mine who grew up in West Virginia?)

Although I have been to the Great Smoky mountains only twice in my life, one of those a brief honeymoon, the region is one I have come to appreciate and love through the books of Janice Holt Giles (also a Kentuckian, like Mark,) whose books “The Enduring Hills”, “Tara’s Healing,” and “Miss Willie” touched my heart. The more contemporary Lee Smith, author of “Oral History”, “Fair and Tender Ladies” and “Black Mountain Breakdown” also brought this part of the country to life. Some, like Janice Holt Giles’ novels, were books I began reading and collecting when I was in my twenties. Later on, as I began collecting cookbooks (and specializing in anything I would consider Americana.) I found so much more depth to what we consider regional Americana in cookbooks, such as “Mountain Country Cooking”.
“The recipes and stories here,” writes Mr. Sohn, “are a synthesis of those living, creative and resourceful Appalachian cooks of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s who would not let you leave the kitchen until you had eaten…”

“Appalachia is enjoying a rebirth of its native food legacy,” says the author, “With “Mountain Country Cooking” you can be a part of a fast-moving renaissance of authentic food and honest home cooking…many Appalachian foods are strikingly different from foods of the South. Southern food includes Louisiana Bayou, Creole Plantation, Ozark, Florida-Spanish and low Charleston. Southern coastal regions are as diverse as the Maryland Shore and the Gulf coast. Southern Food also includes the foods of religious groups such as the Kentucky Shakers and North Carolina Moravians. (I wrote about southern cookbooks for the Cookbook Collectors Exchange, in 1995, and also about the foods of religious groups, such as the Shakers, for the Cookbook Collectors Exchange, in a series of articles titled “The Common Thread” in 1996-97.)
Of “Mountain Country Cooking,” famed cookbook writer John Egerton, author of “Southern Food: At Home, on the Road, In History” (who presents us with the Foreword to “Mountain Country Cooking”) points out that one of the great standard cookbooks of the South was “SOUTHERN COOKING” written in 1928 by Henrietta Stanley Dull, who for many years was a food editor for the Atlanta Journal. Mr. Egerton says that Mark Sohn’s “Mountain Country Cooking” reminds him strongly of Mr. Dull’s “Southern Cooking”. He explains that it’s more than a cookbook, it’s an encyclopedia, a wealth of information about food in the Appalachian mountain region. Egerton says it’s one thing to compile a book of recipes and something else to assemble and organize a comprehensive body of knowledge and put it together into a readable and usable form.
I think this is why cookbooks such as Mark Sohn’s “Mountain Country Cooking” are amongst my favorites—not only do you have a comprehensive collection of fine recipes, you also get some fascinating lessons in what makes American cuisine so diverse.

You will love the format of “Mountain Country Cooking” as well as Mr. Sohn’s relaxed style of writing; he introduces recipes in much the same way that I write down recipes for friends and penpals, informally, as you would for a friend of neighbor—but Mr. Sohn also provides healthy choice alternatives and even describes the degree of difficulty in preparing each dish. Ingredients are listed separately along the margin, a nice feature, I think, so you can see at a glance exactly what is needed to make the dish.

Who is Mark Sohn? He is a resident of Pikeville, Kentucky, who grew up in an Oregon family with four brothers, who all learned to cook. Unlike many 90s families, they not only sat down and ate together, but discussed food in detail at every meal. Some years ago, Mark’s family spent some time in France where an ad for a 5- week cooking class caught his eye. A psychology professor at Pikeville College, Sohn was actually looking for a way to serve others in some way, as his wife, son, and daughter acquainted themselves with French culture.

Later on, the editor of Pikeville’s Appalachian News Express asked him to write a food column. Initially, he wrote articles about his family’s German food heritage. His weekly column “Class Cooking” led to his first cookbook “Southern Cooking” and a TV show, “Classic Cooking”.

Mr. Sohn decided to write “Mountain Country Cooking” when he discovered there wasn’t anything else in print that combined recipes of the area with a travelogue of history and geography of the southern Appalachian region.
Perhaps some of the ground-breaking was done when he taught, in the mid 1970s, a Pikeville College course called Appalachian Education. Mr. Sohn says that in these classes, about 500 students joined him in the study of local education history and in the writing of an ethnographic research paper. This work culminated in a jointly written book “Education in Appalachia’s Central Highlands”. As part of the class, students and their families and friends celebrated Appalachian foods with a potluck heritage dinner. Mark Sohn says it was at these dinners that he learned to appreciate Soup Beans – which to Appalachians is pinto beans. While I grew up with German-Hungarian grandparents, thinking of “bean soup” as the one made with great northern white beans and a hambone, to the Smith family I married into, bean soup was pinto beans cooked all day with a hunk of salt pork and then served with cornbread and chopped raw onion. You can’t imagine how dumbfounded I was, the first time I watched my soon-to-become-husband crumble cornbread on a plate, then cover it with scoops of beans and stock—and THEN top it off with chopped onion!

As you can imagine from my frequent references to previous articles written for the Cookbook Collectors Exchange (no longer publishing), “Mountain Country Home” strikes close to home for this cookbook collector/writer. Within its pages are many of the recipe I dearly love, whether pan-fried chicken or cornbread, fried green tomatoes or—oh yes, boiled green beans! I suggest you try Pinto Bean cakes, which is sort of like a croquette, and utterly delectable, or barbequed baby back ribs, Appalachian style.

Another unique feature of “MOUNTAIN COUNTRY COOKING” is a glossary of food terms and expressions, followed by Mail Order sources and for readers who love a bibliography, there is a substantial listing of the books Mr. Sohn used for reference as he wrote Mountain Country Cooking.

“Mountain Country Cooking” was published in 1996 and can be found on Amazon.com (21 pre-owned copies at $10.95 & up, or a new copy is $39.49 and Amazon has four in stock. AbeBooks.com has one copy for $19.75 plus $3.99 shipping while Alibris.com has pre-owned copies starting at $10.95.

Mark F. Sohn, Ph.D., is a food historian, columnist, photographer, recipe developer, and Professor at Pikeville College. He also is the food editor for The Encyclopedia of Appalachia and has written 1,200 published recipes and produced and demonstrated cooking in more than 450 cable-access television shows. In addition to his personal life-long cooking experience, he studied culinary arts at L’École de Cuisine, a school in Paris, France, owned by Pierre Cardin and Maxim’s Restaurant.

Mark F. Sohn is also the author of:

SOUTHERN COUNTRY COOKING, 1992
APPALACHIAN HOME COOKING, HISTORY, CULTURE AND RECIPES published in 1995
HEARTY COUNTRY COOKING, 1998

Happy cooking & Happy cookbook collecting!

Sandy

WHO WAS COOKBOOK AUTHOR/RECIPE COLUMNIST MARY MARTENSEN?

Sometimes it simply starts with an old recipe card or a clipping with a name on it and you aren’t always sure where on earth you found it, especially if the clipping is very old and yellowed. Well, I do collect old recipe boxes, preferably with old recipe collections intact and this is sometimes where interesting clippings, or clippings pasted onto 3×5” cards turn up. Such is the case with the first recipe I found of Mary Martensen’s. It was a clipping pasted on a 3×5” card with directions for making pea soup.

From the introduction in one of her cookbooks, we learn that Mrs. Martensen was a graduate in Home Economics and Dietetics, having studied at the Boston School of Domestic Science, Simmons College and the Teachers College of Columbia University. Her first experience was as Director of Home Economics for the schools of Concord, New Hampshire. While there she also conducted courses in dietetics at the Concord City Hospital each week, and in Home Economics at Mount St. Mary’s Academy at Hookset, New Hampshire.

Following this, Mrs. Martensen became dietitian at Lake Forest Academy in Lake Forest, Illinois, leaving this position for the Home Economics Department of “a great packing company” (presumably Armour founded in 1867 by the Armour brothers following the Civil War). Here, in four seasons Mrs. Martensen conducted newspaper cooking schools in thirty-five states, lectured to women’s clubs in Chicago and its suburbs, and contributed to the household page edited in her department. She also prepared many recipe booklets, among them “Sixty Ways to Serve Ham” which I believe was compiled for Armour around 1935. During the last 2 years of this period Mrs. Martensen was the directing head of the department. Then followed five years as head of a Home Economics Department which she established for one of the largest baking powder companies in America. (No indication is given for the name of the baking company. Royal, Clabber Girl, and Rumford were three popular baking powder companies getting a strong foothold in the food industry in the late 1800s, early 1900s, however.)

In January, 1927, Mrs. Martensen established a Home Economics Department for “a large western newspaper” where she remained until she was selected by the Chicago Evening American for the position she was holding at the time her first cookbook was published–not counting pamphlets or booklets she may have authored prior to this. [I’m thinking that Mrs. Mary Martensen would have given Ida Bailey Allen a run for her money, as a contemporary in the 1920s writing for food manufacturers, conducting radio recipe programs and then branching out to compile cookbooks.]

Within a few months, the auditorium originally fitted for the newspaper Home Ec department of the Chicago Evening American had to be enlarged to double its size and capacity. Three courses of lessons were given in the first year of the department’s operation, with a total attendance of 6,600.

Editorially, Mrs. Martensen conducted a daily column in the Chicago Evening American, which was amplified to four columns on Mondays and Fridays, and a full page every Saturday in the American Home Journal. Her material was illustrated on Mondays and Saturdays with photographs and sketches made in her department of special dishes and table settings created in the department (The recipe page that a Sandychatter subscriber sent to me was published on a Thursday in the Chicago Herald American and along with recipes for strawberry chiffon pie and pineapple cheese pie, featured lovely illustrations – even in black and white—of a coconut wreath circling the pineapple cheese pie and another illustration of an ice cream pie.) And, apparently, at some point in time, Mrs. Martensen’s recipe columns were picked up by King Syndicate for release to other newspapers throughout the USA.

In the department’s first year, over 21,000 letters were received from readers and over 4,200 telephone calls responded to. Twenty five lectures before women’s clubs, farmers’ institutes, parent-teacher associations and high school classes were conducted. In addition to all this, Mrs. Martensen conducted weekly radio talks.

Mary Martensen was writing a column for the Herald American newspaper in 1950. I believe she was writing newspaper columns in the 1930s and 1940s as well. She also wrote “Mrs. Mary Martensen’s Recipes Cookbook/Chicago American” which I would SWEAR that I have, but to date have been unable to find. This was a newspaper-sponsored cookbook for the Chicago American.

Prior to this, the author worked for the meatpacker Armour Company* where she authored the popular, “Sixty ways to Serve Ham”

*Sandy cooknote: The information I discovered online about the Armour Company and the many different products they manufactured nearly sent me into a tailspin, wanting to read and learn more about Armour—I had to force myself to stay on track with Mary Martensen.

In 1933, Mrs. Martensen wrote “Century of Progress Cookbook*” – so far I have not been able to lay my hands on any of Mary’s cookbooks. However, any number of her newspaper columns have survived over the decades. In fact, a Sandychatter subscriber bought some perfume bottles and found a 1950 sheet of newspaper with Mary Martensen’s Strawberry Chiffon Pie and Pineapple Cheese Pie featured on that date, June 22, 1950 – and sent a copy of it to me.

In addition to its widely syndicated Sunday magazine “The American Weekly”, the Journal-American had a Saturday supplement called Home Magazine, as well. Mary’s columns appeared in this newspaper supplement as well.

Zirta Green, who balanced a career with motherhood and home long before it became fashionable was a test kitchen chef for the Chicago Herald American and Chicago Tribune newspapers for their cooking and recipe columns from 1953-1966, and later for the Mary Martensen TV cooking show, broadcasted on WBKB Chicago, ABC-TV, around 1954. (*This short paragraph about Mrs. Green was the only indication I discovered about Mary Martensen having a TV cooking s how –back in the day, long before TV cooking shows were so popular!

An illustration/portrait of Mary Martensen was published in her first cookbook; it shows a very pretty blonde haired woman, nicely dressed, with a sweet smile.

Not much more is known about Mary Martensen – although if anyone reading this knows more, I would love to hear from you. However, some of her recipes crop up if you take the time to surf Google patiently. The first one I am offering is the recipe I originally found on a recipe card.

To make MARY’S SPLIT PEA SOUP you will need:

1 cup dried split peas
2 ½ quarts cold water
1 pint milk
½ onion
2” cube fat salt pork
3 TBSP butter or margarine
2 TBSP flour
1 ½ tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

Pick over peas and soak several hours in cold water to cover. Drain, add cold water, pork and onion. Simmer 3 or 4 hours or until soft. Put through a sieve*. Add butter and flour and seasonings blended together. Dilute with the milk, adding more milk if necessary. Note the water in which a ham has been cooked may be used. Omit the salt.

Sandy’s cooknote: If you don’t have a sieve, you can blend the peas in your blender but I would suggest cooling it down somewhat, first, and only do half a blender-full at a time so it doesn’t splash. When I make pea soup I like to cook the peas and whatever other ingredients (carrots, onion) -except meat – and blend it in my blender to make it smooth. Then add some leftover ham if you want it in your soup. We like very thick soups, more like chowders. What I usually do is cook a hambone and then set it aside. Use the stock from the hambone then to cook the peas. (And if you take the time to chill the stock, you can easily remove the fat that rises to the top and solidifies). While the peas are cooking, cool the hambone and remove all the bits of meat to put back into the pot later. Ok, it’s a little more work this way–but you will have a fine pot of soup. (Some things do take longer – but I guarantee, if you cook a hambone and use those scraps of meat – you will have a delicious stock AND most flavorful meat. It will beat a package of pre-diced ham bits from the supermarket hands down!)

Here is Mary’s recipe for SUNSHINE CAKE, 1946

1 cup sifted cake flour
½ teaspoon salt
5 egg yolks, beaten
7 egg whites, beaten
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 ¼ cups sugar
1 teaspoon any desired flavoring (I recommend lemon extract)
Preparation Instructions

Sift the flour once, measure and resift twice with the salt. Beat the egg yolks until thick and lemon colored. Beat the egg whites until foamy, add the cream of tartar and beat until stiff, but not dry. Add the sugar gradually and beat until the mixture holds in soft peaks. Fold in the beaten egg yolks and flavoring. Fold in the flour gently but thoroughly to avoid breaking air cells in the egg mixture. Pour batter into an ungreased ten-inch tube pan and bake in a moderate oven, 350 degrees, for about 50 minutes, or until done. Remove from oven and invert for one hour, or until cool. When cool, frost with a thin coating of confectioners’ sugar, or sprinkle with sifted confectioners’ sugar.

MARY MARTENSEN’S POPCORN BALLS, 1946

1 cup molasses
1 tablespoon vinegar
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup dark corn syrup
3 quarts salted popped corn

Combine molasses, corn syrup and vinegar in a saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until a small amount of syrup will form a hard ball when dropped into cold water. This is about 270 degrees if tested with a candy thermometer. Remove from the heat, add the butter and pour over the popped corn, stirring only enough to mix. Form into balls with the hands, using as little pressure as possible. Makes 16 to 18 balls.

(Sandy’s Cooknote *I can’t wait to make this. I buy a big bottle of molasses from a warehouse-type of supermarket in Palmdale, called Smart & Final because I love to make molasses cookies—and I like adding a small amount to the white Karo syrup when I am making caramel corn).

From a Sandychatter reader: “I have my grandmother’s collection of recipes and cookbook. In there I found 2 pages of dumpling recipes from the Chicago Herald American, Home Economics Department, Mary Martensen, Director. They are hand typed and the photo copied from some sort of note book then mailed to my grandmother. I was interested so I did a little research. The Newspaper was the Chicago Evening American from 1914-1939 then it became the Chicago Herald-American 1939-1953 then the Chicago American from 1953-1969.” Tina Aiello Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

(*Sandy’s Cooknote: Tina, if you happen to read this, would you share some of your grandmother’s recipes with me?. When Mary’s first cookbook was published some pages were deliberately left blank just so someone could add their own recipes or clippings.)

MARY MARTENSEN’S CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES

½ cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk or soured milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Preparation Instructions

Cream the shortening, add sugar and cream together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the chocolate which has been melted and cooled, and blend well.

Sift the flour once, measure and resift twice with the soda and salt. Add to the batter alternately with the buttermilk, beating until smooth after each addition. Add vanilla. Fill twelve cupcake pans which have been greased, two thirds full with the batter. Bake in a 350 degree oven, for about 20 minutes or until done.

When cupcakes are cool, with a small sharp pointed knife cut a cone-shape from the top of each. Remove and fill hollowed out portion with slightly sweetened whipped cream. If desired, a larger hollow can be made in the cupcake. Also, ice cream can be used in place of whipped cream to fill the hollow centers. Place top (which was removed from cupcake) on top of whipped cream and pour chocolate sauce over the top.

To make the chocolate sauce: Combine in a saucepan, one square unsweetened chocolate, cut in pieces, one cup sugar, two tablespoons corn syrup, one tablespoon butter and one-third cup hot water. Blend well and cook over low heat, stirring constantly until mixture comes to boiling point, then cook for five minutes. Cool slightly and add a few grains of salt and one half teaspoon vanilla. Serve warm or cold. Contributed by MARY MARTENSEN, 1946

From another Sandychatter reader, Rebecca Christian “I was interested in the Mary Martensen recipe. I worked as a test kitchen home economist in the test kitchen of Chicago’s American newspaper from 1967-1970. Mary Martensen was the nom de plume of the food editor who at that time was Dorothy Thompson. We had about 35,000 recipes in our files and they are still some of my best ones. Wish I had those files now!

Rebecca also wrote “Chicago’s American was eliminated as the afternoon paper of the Chicago Tribune around 1970 or 71. Don’t know if the Tribune kept the recipes or not. There are Chicago Tribune cookbooks but I don’t think they had any American recipes. Each paper owned by the Tribune as well as the Chicago Daily News had test kitchens at the time. We tested every recipe that went in the American. Those days are long gone! Becky.

(*Sandy’s cooknote – Oh, Rebecca – what wouldn’t we all give to have Mary’s recipes today! I’m pea-green with envy that you had the opportunity to work in the test kitchen of Chicago’s American newspaper from 1967-1970—I was busy giving birth during most of those years. Lol).

*Sandy’s cooknote – there are a lot of gaps in my story about Mary Martensen. I don’t know where she grew up or where she spent most of her life. I don’t know how long she lived even though we DO know that Zirta Green was a test kitchen chef of Mrs. Martensen’s who lived to the age of 97! On previous occasions when I mentioned Mary Martensen, readers responded with comments I have included in this post.

The best I can hope to achieve is more details becoming available to us – I am reminded of writing about Myra Waldo, first years ago (around 1990) when I was unable to learn ANYthing about Myra’s later life – and then years later, when I was rewriting my manuscript about Myra, I found obituary details on Google, not previously available to me. I like the idea “if you build it, they will come”

Cookbooks by Mary Martensen:

Home Canning and Freezing Book- or The Canning, Freezing, Curing & Smoking of Meat fish game – date unknown, possibly 1935

CENTURY OF PROGRESS COOKBOOK 1932

Mrs. Mary Martensen’s Recipes Cookbook Chicago American”

SIXTY WAYS TO SERVE HAM, Armour Ham, 1935

RECIPES FOR WILD GAME 1935?

(Sandy’s final cooknote: If anyone knows more about Mary’s cookbooks, such as dates of publication, or any other food editors writing under Mary Martensen’s name—or her other book titles please write!)

Happy Cooking & Happy Cookbook collecting!
Sandy

JANE BUTEL’S COOKBOOKS & GREMLINS IN MY COMPUTER

I was working for several days to complete a list of Jane Butel’s cookbooks and trying to get them all in date order. SOMEHOW I lost the original list which should have ben included in Part 2 of Three Quite Unrelated Cookbooks and Seventy Years. I couldnt come up with 20 titles no matter how much I searched so I wrote to the author who graciously wrote back to me. The list now contains 22 titles! You will find this list useful if you decide to visit Amazon or Alibris and shop for some of Jane’s cookbooks.

She wanted me to let you all know what you can go to www.janebutelcooking.com and subscribe to Butels Bytes. I did some surfing around on Jane’s website over the weekend and was quite impressed. You might want to give this site a visit and perhaps become a subscriber (I am going to sign up). MEANTIME for my readers who like to know these things, here is a ist of Jane Butel’s cookbooks- and hopefully this is a complete list.(Thanks, Jane!) Sandy@sandychatter:

COCINAS DE NEW MEXICO, 1961
JANE BUTEL’S COOKBOOKS FAVORITE MEXCAN FOODS, 1968
JANE BUTEL’S FREEZER COOKBOOK 1977
JANE BUTEL’S TEX-MEX COOKBOOK, 1979
CHILI MADNESS, 1980
FINGER LICKIN’ RIB STICKIN’ GREAT TASTIN’ HOT N SPICY BARBECUE 1982
TACOS, TORTILLAS AND TOSTADOS 1982
WOMAN’S DAY BOOK OF NEW MEXCAN COOKING 1984
THE BEST OF MEXICAN COOKING 1984
HOTTER THAN HELL, 1987
FIESTA 1987
JANE BUTEL’S TEX-MEX COOKBOOK, 1993
HOTTER THAN HELL 1994 (REVISED AND EXPANDED)
JANE BUTEL’S SOUTHWESTERN KITCHEN 1994
JANE BUTEL’S SOUTHWESTERN GRILL (with Gordon McMeen) 1996
FIESTAS FOR FOUR SEASONS, 1997
JANE BUTEL’S QUICK & EASY SOUTHWESTERN COOKBOOK 1999
HOTTER THAN HELL, REVISED AND EXPANDED AND REWORKED WITH PHOTOGRAPHY, etc. 2005
REAL WOMEN EAT CHILES 2006
CHILI MADNESS, 2ND EDITION, REVISED AND EXPANDED, 2008
THE BEST OF MEXICAN COOKING 2009
REGIONAL MEXICAN COOKING FROM THE SCOTTSDALE FAIRMONT PRINCESS COOKING SCHOOL, 2009

Three Quite Unrelated Cookbooks and Seventy Years – Part Two

The second book of the three quite unrelated cookbooks was Jane Butel’s Southwestern Grill published in 1996. I like Mexican food (most of it anyway) and I like Southwestern cuisine too – I think most Southern Californians are familiar with both and enjoy either or almost anytime.

I hope the name Jane Butel is familiar to you. She is credited with starting the Tex-Mex mania. Jane Butel published her first cookbook on New Mexican and American Mexican food in the 1960′s. Eighteen cookbooks later*, her latest cookbook, “Real Women Eat Chiles” features the healthy aspects of chiles, and profiles some of the real women who eat them.

Jane Butel is an internationally recognized authority on the regional cooking of the American Southwest. She is a cookbook author, teacher and television personality whose most recent television project, “Jane Butel’s Southwestern Kitchen”, is being presented to public television stations nationwide by KUHT-TV, Houston PBS.

Having consulted with such major chains as Del Taco, El Torrito and Zona Rosa, and with Luxury Hotels, she is now in her 25th year of operating her own Cooking Schools in various locations in New Mexico and Scottsdale, AZ., which have been recognized far and wide for the quality of instruction. Jane’s Cooking School specializes in week long and weekend full-participation classes on New Mexican and Southwestern cooking. BON APPETIT magazine credits her Cooking School as the “BEST IN THE U.S.” VACATION SCHOOL.

All this being said, I want to talk to you today about Jane Butel’s Southwestern Grill. Here in Southern California, we love anything that can be tossed on the grill. And, two of my two grandchildren love tacos, Burritos, quesadillas– anything easy to pick up and eat with their fingers. You will love Jane’s recipes for Grilled Chicken Adobo, Grilled Rosemary Garlic Chicken Breasts, or for a special dinner how about sake-marinated grilled pork tenderloin with mushrooms?

Grilled Pork Steaks with Apples and Onions is a new take on “pork chops and applesauce” while Mystery Marinated Chuck Roast has mostly ingredients you will find on your pantry shelves and is at the top of my list of new recipes to try.
I am especially tantalized by the recipes for fresh cranberry salsa or dried cherry salsa but you will want to try Jane’s Grilled Corn & Red Bell Pepper Salsa too. (I tried this one on my family last year). There are recipes for barbecue sauces and herb marinades, in addition to salsas, and recipes for side dishes—and a lovely selection of homemade breads that includes a sourdough starter. But I think the recipe I want to try NEXT is one for a low fat Banana Zucchini Cake! Yowza! This CAKE is baked on the grill too!

To make Jane’s Low Fat Banana Zucchini Cake you will need:

1 cup mashed ripe bananas (1 large or 2 small)
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
3 ½ cups shredded zucchini
½ cup (8 oz can drained) crushed pineapple
1 tsp Mexican vanilla
2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp salt
Fresh ground nutmeg
Powdered sugar for dusting top (optional)

Preheat grill to medium or 350 degrees if not already hot. Butter a 9×14” baking pan that will not get damaged on the grill or cover the bottom with foil, or use a foil pan.

Combine bananas, oil and sugar in a large bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat until sugar dissolves. Beat in eggs one at a time. Mix in zucchini, pineapple and vanilla. In another bowl, combine dry ingredients and stir until blended. Then add the dry ingredients one-quarter at a time, mixing after each addition. Mix only until all ingredients are well combined. Turn batter into prepared baking pan. Place on grill rack and cover grill. Bake about 45 mins or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean and cake springs back when gently pressed. Cool on cake rack. Dust with powdered sugar if desired. Makes 12 servings

*Substitute carrots for zucchini if desired
**

I found a most interesting recipe for using inexpensive chicken parts on Jane Butel’s website—which you may want to visit. She also has a newsletter, which I signed up for.

The following will knock our socks off (and what a great dish for company!)

COQ au VIN

(CHICKEN IN WINE SAUCE)

Writes Jane: This is my all-time favorite coq recipe, developed during my early New Mexico years. Fired with caribe and flamed with cognac, it’s a fabulous dish with a perfect marriage of flavors, certain to be a hit with family and guests—though you may want to hoard it all for yourself! Since this stew is so robust, accompany it with a soothing side dish. And, never, ever waste a drop of the savory sauce; if you have any leftover, freeze it for later use. It’s wonderful in all kinds of stews.

Yield: 6 servings

½ cup all-purpose flour
2 Tablespoons caribe (crushed Northern New Mexico red chile)
1 teaspoon salt
1 (3 ½ to 4 pound) broiler-fryer chicken, cut for frying
½ cup unsalted butter
6 Tablespoons cognac
1 clove garlic, minced
1 fresh bay leaf
4 sprigs fresh thyme or ½ teaspoon dried thyme
¼ cup minced flat-leaf parsley
6 small white boiling onions, peeled
½ pound fresh mushrooms, any kind, sliced
6 slices thick bacon, heavily smoked country style sliced into ½ inch pieces
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 cup Burgundy or other good quality dry red wine
Fried Croutons–
French bread, cut in 1 inch cubes
Olive oil
Unsalted butter

1. In a paper bag or large shallow bowl, mix flour, caribe and salt. Dredge chicken in flour mixture. Meanwhile, melt butter in a large deep, heavy skillet (or in a chicken fryer) over medium-high heat. Add chicken pieces and cook until browned on all sides, turning as needed; adjust heat as necessary to prevent over-browning.

2. Add cognac to hot skillet and flame carefully, keeping a lid nearby to extinguish flames should they rise too high. When flames die, stir in garlic, bay leaf, thyme, 3 Tablespoons of the parsley, onions, mushrooms, bacon, and a generous grinding of black pepper. Pour wine over all. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer about 45 minutes, or until chicken is tender and sauce is thickened.

3.Meanwhile, prepare Fried Croutons. In a skillet, toast French bread cubes in a mixture of half oil and half melted butter until light golden on all sides, stirring as needed. Cool.

4. To serve, place chicken on a large warmed platter and cover with sauce, arranging onions decoratively around chicken. Sprinkle croutons over the top, and then sprinkle with remaining 1 Tablespoon parsley.

Reprinted from the book “Hotter Then Hell”

Many of Jane Butel’s cookbooks are available on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Alibris has some of her titles for 99c each. I saw one on Amazon.com listed at $1.26. Of course, you will pay $3.99 shipping on books purchased from private vendors but in the neighborhood of $5.00 for one of her cookbooks is not a bad price. I ordered three of Jane’s cookbooks from private vendors, via Amazon.com and the total including shipping charges was under $15.00.

This completes part two of “Three Quit Unrelated Cookbooks and Seventy Years Apart” – I never intended to be so wordy, so the third cookbook
Forgotten Skills of Cooking” will be in my next post.

Happy cooking and Happy cookbook collecting!
Sandy

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION – WHAT I KNOW ABOUT HELEN EVANS BROWN

Some years ago, a little used bookstore specializing in cookbooks opened up in Burbank, not far from the mall on San Fernando blvd, in a section of town that boasted of perhaps half a dozen used bookstores. It was one of my favorite places to shop—and eat There are many great restaurants in the area, as well.

I became a frequent customer when the cookbook shop, owned by Janet Jarvits, opened its doors. Janet was a young woman who managed to acquire thousands of cookbooks from the personal library of Helen Evans Brown. (In 2001, Janet Jarvits moved her bookstore to Pasadena, while in 2008 I moved to the Antelope Valley, where I find most of my cookbooks these days at the Lancaster Friends of the Library annual book sale).

So, how did a young woman who was not even a cookbook collector—manage to buy the personal cookbook collection of California cook book author Helen Evans Brown? According to a story that ran in the L.A. Times in 1994, Janet graduated from college in 1988, then worked at a publishing house, but when the company moved out of the area, she found a job at Bond Street Books. Here, she discovered her passion and also realized she enjoyed talking with customers about older books. The turning point came to her when a colleague made her an offer she couldn’t refuse – 40 boxes of books from a recent auction, for only $200. In the collection there were enough cookbooks for her to start a library in her bedroom. That was in 1990 and thousands of books ago.

In 1993, a colleague in the book world referred Janet to Philip S. Brown, husband of the now deceased cookbook author/food writer Helen Evans Brown. Janet visited Philip in his Pasadena home where he had lived with Helen, and where the books were housed. Janet obtained the collection which was in a state of disrepair. Philip had abandoned the house, remarried and gone on to live a life without Helen. During the time the books sat in the house, some of them were damaged by a fire, smoke & the water used to put out the fire. All of this left a portion of the library unusable. The practical solution was to catalogue the books and offer them for sale. Janet Jarvits offered a catalog of the best of the non-charitable cookbooks for sale in 1994.

I obtained my first Helen Evans Brown cookbook in the 1960s when I had not been collecting very long—and the “West Coast Cook Book” that I found was a reprint published by the Cookbook Collectors Library. Another early find was “Helen Brown’s Holiday Cookbook” published in 1952 – a first edition – boasting of an introduction by M.F.K. Fisher. My copy has a little water damage—but in my early days of collecting I wasn’t particular. And, back then, I didn’t know who M.F.K. Fisher was—what I did know and recognize is that I liked Helen’s style of cookbook writing.

Helen and Philip S Brown lived in Pasadena from 1937 until her death in 1964.

Before Helen met Philip, she had a career running a successful catering business called The Epiurean, with a friend, and was running a restaurant in New England. Philip courted her and talked her into moving to the west coast with him.

There Helen started work as a consultant to a Hollywood Bakery and Philip began working on an antiquarian bookstore. After working as a consultant to the Hollywood bakery, Helen began writing articles for popular magazines such as Sunset and McCalls.

In 1940, Helen began writing a monthly mailing piece “Baltzer’s Bulletin” for an upscale grocery store, and the following year, a food column for a new fashion magazine “The Californian”. She published a small cookbook “Some Shrimp Recipes” in 1946 and a full length cookbook, “Chafing Dish Book” in 1950. She was well known enough to be approached by a major publisher, Little, Brown for her next book “West Coast Cook Book” published in 1952.

Also, in 1952, “Helen Brown’s Holiday Cook Book”, was published by Little, Brown & Company in Boston; it was published simultaneously in Canada by McClelland and Stewart, Limited.

In 1953, Helen & Philip co-Authored “Virginia City Cook Book”, which I do not have, and in 1955, she co-authored The Complete Book of Outdoor Cookery with James Beard.

Then, in 1958, Helen co-authored two cookbooks with Philip, “Book of Appetizers” and “Cocktail Hour”. A year later, Helen and Philip produced “The Boys Cook Book”.

Then, in 1961 Helen and Philip co-authored “Breakfasts and Brunches for Every Occasion” and “The Cookout Book”, which features prize winning recipes from cookout championships. The Ward Ritchie Press published a soft cover edition of “The Cookout Book” – which I happened to find somewhere and only paid a dollar for it.

In 1963, Helen co-authored The Book of Curries and Chutneys with William Veach, while in 1964, she wrote “Adventures in Food” with the staff of Sunset Magazine.

During her marriage to Philip, he built Helen’s cookbook collection and also served as taster, research assistant and typist for their book projects. They coauthored “The Boys Cook Book”, published in 1959 and then several others after that.

Helen and James Beard co-authored “The Complete Book of Outdoor Cookery” first published in 1955 by Doubleday. This cookbook would be reprinted in a lovely softcover edition when the copyright was renewed in 1983. I know this because I bought a copy of the softcover edition, before I had any idea a) how many of Helen Evans Brown’s books I owned, or b) how many James Beard cookbooks I had. (the problem with a large cookbook collection, I’ve learned, is that unless you have them in some kind of pristine library-ish order, you won’t know what all you actually have in your home library.

Now James Beard has been written about extensively – Helen Evans Brown not so much. This might be because she passed away much too soon—and I’ll bet that neither Helen nor James ever envisioned how much cookbook collecting would take off—and that’s a whole other topic to explore some other time. I think I managed to just squeeze in on the ground floor, starting a collection, specializing in church & club cookbooks in 1965.

Helen Evans Brown & James Beard were good friends—in 1994, “Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles”, containing more than 300 of Beard’s letters to Helen over a period of 12 years was edited and published by his friend & editor John Ferrone. “In the 1950s and ‘60s” we learn from the inside just jacket of “Love and Kisses…” “Helen Brown was the culinary authority of the West Coast—Beard revered her, placing her on a par with M.F.K. Fisher. Brown and Beard wrote to each other at least twice a week until Helen Brown’s untimely death in 1964, sharing their gastronomic musings and the results of their daily inspirations—many of which would later appear in their books. Both traveled extensively, and in their warm epistolary dialogues they expounded on their philosophy of eating, the art of cooking, and their often exotic forays into foreign cuisines.

Beard loved food—good food—and his exuberance and enthusiasm are both overwhelming and infectious. He was also demanding and exacting, and never minced words when served a meal he considered less than perfect. Thus his correspondence is spiced with his utterly charming yet often caustic views on food, wine, and the art of eating. This lively correspondence between two food giants, thoughtfully culled and put into context by Beard’s close friend and editor John Ferrone, is also a testament to a beautiful and moving friendship…”

In Ferrone’s introduction we learn how the two food giants met – and how the correspondence between them began with fan letters – his to her and hers back to him…but I am bowled over by Ferrone’s explanation of how he acquired the correspondence, left in bulging filing cabinets destined for the dumpster after James Beard had passed away! You will really want to read “Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles” – the book that almost didn’t happen.

Helen and her husband Philip lived in Pasadena, California; James Beard was based in New York. He paid the Browns a first visit in the spring of 1953, escalating friendship into love. Thereafter he could always be sure of an affectionate welcome and an extra-long extra-wide mattress. The Browns were as close to family as anything Beard would have in the years ahead. He was crazy about both of them—a number of these letters are addressed to Philip or to “Dear Browns” – but it was Helen he adored. I hope I have whetted your appetite and that you will go buy a copy of “Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles”. I didn’t mean to digress this much—but Helen Evans Brown & James Beard managed to co-author “The Complete Book of Outdoor Cookery” despite living on opposite sides of the USA. Helen co-authored a number of books with her husband, and a couple of others with William Templeton Veach.

I wish I could have known Helen Evans Brown and her husband Philip. I wish I could have seen their house in Pasadena. I wish I could have met James Beard and M.F.K. Fisher. I wish I could have met the other Browns – Cora, Rose and Bob Brown, co-authors of about a dozen cookbooks that I treasure. The next best thing is to collect as many of their books as I can find. And read them. And then re-read them. Then go wander into the kitchen, my finger holding my place in a book…and see if I have the right ingredients to make something that has whet my appetite.

And when I am finished reading the cookbooks of my favorite cookbook authors–then, I will write about them and encourage as many people as possible to discover these books for themselves—if you haven’t already.

Various books and internet sources mention only briefly that Helen Evans Brown died an untimely death in 1964. I found the piece of the puzzle I was searching for, in John Ferrone’s introduction in “Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles”. Ferrone writes: “It must have been shattering to Jim when his friend, Helen, died in December, 1964. She was sixty. The rare kidney disease that first surfaced in 1961 had developed into cancer. She was too ill to work through most of her final year and Philip took over her writing assignments. Jim Beard’s last surviving letter to her was written in August, from Provence. He was able to pay her a visit in November, two weeks before she died.

And now you may be wondering – what’s with the “six degrees of separation”—it’s just this: In late 1994, L.A. Times Staff Writer Kathie Jenkins called me up one evening and asked me if I would answer some questions about my cookbook collection. I was too non-plussed to ask Ms. Jenkins where she got my name or how she learned about my collection. The story appeared in the Thursday, December 15, 1994 issue of the L.A. Times –along with a photograph of Janet Jarvits, a background of her cookbooks and a cat. It turned out I was the lead-in to a story about Janet Jarvits’ cookbook store—a cookbook store I was well acquainted with. I knew Janet Jarvits. Janet Jarvits had purchased about 5000 volumes from the personal collection that had belonged to Helen Evans Brown. Six degrees of separation. Or maybe that’s only three degrees.

Happy Cookbook Collecting!
Sandy

IS THERE A NUTMEG IN THE HOUSE? AND THE LIFE OF ELIZABETH DAVID

The following is a cookbook review that I wrote in either 2000 or 2001 when “Is There a Nutmeg in the House” was published. Elizabeth David passed away in 1992 at her Chelsea home in England, where she had lived for forty years. Still, her books are eagerly sought after and new cookbook collectors would do well to search for them. In 2006, the BBC released a made-for-television film starring Catherine McCormack as Elizabeth. It was called “Elizabeth David: A Life in Recipes”. Not surprisingly; Ms. David led a most interesting life. You may want to find a copy of “WRITING AT THE KITCHEN TABLE: THE AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF ELIZABETH DAVID” by Artemis Cooper.

This is what I wrote for the Cookbook Collectors Exchange a decade ago:

Devoted fans of Elizabeth David will be delighted to learn that, although one of the world’s greatest cookbook authors died in 1992, a new book of her work has been published.

The intriguing title, “IS THERE A NUTMEG IN THE HOUSE?” begs investigation.

“Along with M.F.K. Fisher and Julia Child,” the publishers begin, “Elizabeth David changed the way we think about and prepare our food. Her nine books, written with impeccable wit and considerable brilliance, helped educate the taste (and taste buds) of the postwar generation. Insisting on authentic recipes and fresh ingredients, she taught that food need not be complicated to be delicious…”

Elizabeth David, they explain, was a very private person who seldom gave interviews. However, a 1984 collection of her essays, entitled “AN OMELETTE AND A GLASS OF WINE” greatly revealed Elizabeth David to her readers and is now considered the best food book written in the 20th century. Now, nearly 20 years later, comes the sequel to that book.

“IS THERE A NUTMEG IN THE HOUSE?” contains work covering four decades. Included is a considerable amount of material previously unpublished, found in her own files or contributed by friends to whom she had given recipes or to whom she had sent letters.

Jill Norman, Elizabeth David’s editor and friend for over 25 years is now the literary trustee of Elizabeth David’s estate. She was responsible for the posthumous publishing of “HARVEST OF THE COLD MONTHS” and then persuaded many of Elizabeth David’s friends to contribute notes on their favorite pieces for the anthology “SOUTH WIND THROUGH THE KITCHEN”.

In the introduction to “IS THERE A NUTMEG IN THE HOUSE?” Jill explains, “in the early eighties, Elizabeth and I spent many very agreeable hours selecting the articles which appeared in her first anthology, “AN OMELETTE AND A GLASS OF WINE”, published in 1984.

The kitchen in her house in Halsey Street may have been crammed with utensils of all sorts, but bookcases and shelves took up every wall in the other rooms and corridors overflowing with her substantial library of cookery, history, travel and reference books, and numerous files and folders of assorted papers”. (Be still my heart!).

Their routine, she explains, was to take a number of files each, select the pieces each found most stimulating, most expressive of the pleasures of good food, and likely still to appear to readers, and then to compare notes. It was, Jill says, “one of the most enjoyable editorial tasks I have ever undertaken. The articles were a pleasure to read, and Elizabeth’s reminiscences about the research and writing of many of them often kept us talking until late at night…”

In the end, they discovered they had too much material and decided to put some pieces aside for a later volume. “This, at last,” Jill writes, “is that volume: during the last years of her life, most of Elizabeth’s energy went into gathering material for “HARVEST OF THE COLD MONTHS” which was finished after her death and published in 1994”

“Elizabeth,” Jill says, “always read widely in early cookery books in English, French and Italian and enjoyed trying out their recipes. Many of those which she adapted from well-known English writers have appeared in her English books…”

“During the 25 years I worked with Elizabeth,” writes her friend and editor, “she was constantly experimenting and trying out new dishes, sometimes for a book, sometimes because a food she or one of her friends particularly liked was in season, or because there was a dish she wanted to explore more thoroughly. When she was satisfied with the recipe and it was typed in its final form, it was her custom to give copies, usually signed and dated, to friends. Many subsequently appeared her later books but others which did not are included here. The folders from her house yielded many unpublished recipes, and occasionally accompanying articles….

With few exceptions,” says Jill, “none of the material in “IS THERE A NUTMEG IN THE HOUSE?” has appeared in book form before…”

She further explains that Elizabeth recipes were written as a text to be read, not, as is currently the norm, a list of ingredients in the order to be used followed by a list of instructions.

The essays in “IS THERE A NUTMEG IN THE HOUSE?” are charming and witty, and provide more than a glimpse into the world of Elizabeth David, a woman whose life would have been fascinating even if she had not embarked on cooking and writing about it!

I was especially intrigued with what Elizabeth David had to say about making stocks and broths. This is something I am personally acquainted with, having recently turned my attention to making my own stocks and broths. (The major drawback, when someone wants to know how you made this soup…is that you’ll never have this recipe again—much of what goes into my vegetable stock depends on the vegetables in my refrigerator (or what is in season and growing in our garden) at the time I have decided to make soup. I make a ham stock out of ham bones and left over ham bits, then strain it, remove any fat, chop up the meat, and then chill it. The next day I make my bean or pea soup. But I digress).

Elizabeth David had very definite ideas about the making of stock, and thoroughly disdained the old English cookbooks, including those of Mrs. Beeton , who instructed the cook that “…everything in the way of meat, bones, gravies and flavourings (sic) that would otherwise be wasted” should go into the stock-pot. “Shank-bone of mutton, gravy left over when the half-eaten leg was moved to another dish, trimmings of beef, steak that went into a pie, remains of gravies, bacon rinds and bones, poultry giblets, bones of roast meat, scraps of vegetables…such a pot in most houses should always be on the fire.” Ew, ew!

Elizabeth responds, “Heavens, what a muddy, greasy, unattractive and quite often sour and injurious brew must have emerged from that ever-simmering tub…”

She goes on to tell her readers how to make a good stock and why a bouillon cubes don’t really make the grade. “Taking Stock” is an essay from the Spectator, published in 1960.

There are numerous essays in “IS THERE A NUTMEG IN THE HOUSE?” (plus over 150 recipes), and I think you will, as I did, enjoy them all. But I was most curious to learn how the title of the book came about. Sure enough, beginning on page 91 is an essay, “IS THERE A NUTMEG IN THE HOUSE” which was, I discovered, taken from a Williams-Sonoma booklet published in 1975.

Elizabeth tells the story of Joseph Nollekens, an 18th century English sculptor who was famous for his portrait busts of famous men and women of his day. While Mrs. Nollekens had the peculiar habit of scrounging free spices from the grocer, her husband filched nutmeg from the dinner table of the Royal Academy of Arts.

Mrs. Nollekens, when she shopped for tea and sugar, would always request, just as she was ready to leave the store, to have either a clove or a bit of cinnamon to take away an unpleasant taste in her mouth—but was never seen to actually put it into her mouth. Between the two of them, they managed to accumulate a little stock of spices – free.

Elizabeth goes on to provide an essay on nutmeg, which was enormously popular in the 18th century. “It was a civilised fad,” she writes, “that eighteenth-century love of portable nutmeg graters for the dining-room, and the drawing room hot drinks, and for travelling. I see no reason why w shouldn’t revive it. It is far from silly to carry a little nutmeg box and grater around in one’s pocket. In London restaurants, such a piece of equipment comes in handy. Here, even in Italian restaurants, I find it necessary to ask for nutmeg to grate on to my favourite plain pasta with butter and Parmesan, and for leaf spinach as well…?”

She continues with a bit of history on nutmeg and explains the difference between nutmeg and mace. “Mace,” writes Elizabeth, “is a part of the same fruit as nutmeg and has a similar aroma, but coarser, less sweet and more peppery…”

Elizabeth would be pleased to learn, I think, that I have whole nutmeg and a nutmeg grater in my kitchen cupboard. I would have never thought to take it with me to a restaurant, though.

“IS THERE A NUTMEG IN THE HOUSE?” is utterly delightful and charming, written in Elizabeth David’s unique style. Compiled by Jill Norman, it was published by Viking in 2000. The price is $29.95.

Anyone who enjoys “reading cookbooks the way other people read novels” (how often have we heard that!) will be sure to enjoy this delightful book.

*I checked with Amazon and there are dozens of Elizabeth David’s books available, both new and used. The lowest price for “IS THERE A NUTMEG IN THE HOUSE?” is $1.99. A copy of “WRITING AT THE KITCHEN TABLE” is available for $1.99 but there are far fewer copies available at this time.! But don’t overlook Barnes & Noble’s website or sites like Alibris.com.

And Oh! Be still my heart! Released March 1, 2011, “AT ELIZABETH DAVID’S TABLE; CLASSIC RECIPES AND TIMELESS KITCHEN WISDOM” by Elizabeth David, Rick Rodgers and Ruth Reichl. (Rick Rodgers and Ruth Reichl are both well known cookbook authors. Ruth Reichl was the editor of “Gourmet” magazine before it closed its doors). You can buy it new, hardcover, for $18.75 at Alibris.com but there aren’t a lot of copies floating around at this time.

Elizabeth David is the author of the following:

*MEDITERRANEAN FOOD, 1950
*FRENCH COUNTRY COOKING, 1951
*ITALIAN FOOD, 1954
*SUMMER COOKING, 1955
*FRENCH PROVINCIAL COOKING, 1960
*SPICES, SALT AND AROMATICS IN THE ENGLISH KITCHEN, 1970
*ENGLISH BREAD AND YEAST COOKERY, 1977
*AN OMELETTE AND A GLASS OF WINE, 1984

OTHER POSTHUMOUS PUBLICATIONS:

*HARVEST OF THE COLD MONTHS, 1994
*SOUTH WIND THROUGH THE KITCHEN: THE BEST OF ELIZABETH DAVID, 1998
*ELIZABETH DAVID’S CHRISTMAS, 2003
*ELIZABETH DAVID’S CLASSICS (Mediterranean Food, French Country Cooking, Summer Cooking) 1980
*AT ELIZABETH DAVID’S TABLE: HER VERY BEST EVERYDAY RECIPES, 2010

You may also wish to find a copy of “ELIZABETH DAVID: A BIOGRAPHY, by Lisa Chaney.

Happy cooking and happy cookbook reading!

–Sandra Lee Smith

FALLING OFF THE BONE, BY JEAN ANDERSON

“FALLING OFF THE BONE” is the latest cookbook from Jean Anderson, published in 2010 by John Wiley & Sons.

Jean, you may know if you have followed her career at all, is the author of more than twenty cookbooks and has written articles for Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Gourmet and other national magazines. She is also a six-time best cookbook award winner (James Beard, IACP, and Tastemaker) and is a member of the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame. She is also a founding member of both Les Dames d’Escoffier and the New York Women’s Culinary Alliance.

Jean Anderson is a cookbook author whose work I have long admired, but with the publishing of “AMERICAN CENTURY COOKBOOK” in 1997, her status, in my eyes, increased enormously. This is a cookbook to treasure forever, and the fascinating detail is reflected in the pages that took the author ten years to write. Other cookbook authors have written books in tribute to the past century, but Jean Anderson’s “AMERICAN CENTURY COOKBOOK” easily outshines them all. It could not have been an easy task, to search out the most popular recipes of the 20th century, and to chronicle 100 years of culinary change in America. Look at the changes that have taken place in just the past twenty or thirty years!

Now we have another Jean Anderson cookbook that you will want to cherish and use forever. I’ve always been more than a little partial to “one dish” meals, probably because that’s what my mother prepared more than anything else.

“In our rush to do everything on fast-forward,” we learn on the dust jacket to ‘Falling Off The Bone’, “we forget the slow-and-low cooking methods that can turn the most common and affordable cut of meat into a supremely tender and tasty family meal. The toughest veal shank slowly simmered in broth is magically transformed into a fall-off-the-bone-tender Ossobuco. A bony beef tail stewed with vegetables becomes a deeply flavorful and nourishing Oxtail Soup. All over the world, the most satisfying and soulful meat dishes don’t cost a lot of money—they just take a little more time (make that unattended time) and a little more love.”

“FALLING OFF THE BONE” is divided into four categories of contents; Beef, Veal, Lamb and Pork—and not only does the author provide you with a wealth of falling off the bone recipes, she also provides the best ways to cook each recipe, along with nutritional profiles, grades of the meat and shopping, storage, and freezing tips. It occurs to me, as I am reading the recipes, that this cookbook would make a dandy wedding present for pair of newlyweds. (You will note, please, that I didn’t say a ‘dandy wedding present for a bride’ – more and more husbands are taking up a wooden spoon or spatula and learning how to cook. Three of my four sons enjoy cooking and retain bragging rights in the kitchen).

In the chapter for beef, you will find (in a place of honor – the first recipe – Jean’s grandmother’s hearty beef and vegetable soup. There is also a recipe for Root Soup which only uses ¾ pound of meat in the recipe. Another sure to please recipe is Oxtail Soup which brings to mind Julie & Norma, two ladies who rented rooms from my grandmother in her house on Baltimore Avenue when I was a teenager.

The ladies often made oxtail soup and the aroma drifted throughout the house on oxtail-soup-night.

There is also a recipe for Borsch and a beef shank soup with meatballs and vegetables—followed by a recipe for onion-smothered beef. OMG, I can’t wait to try this – and there are only six ingredients to the recipe.

There are also recipes for beef stew with carrots, corn & potatoes, a mulligan stew, prairie stew and sweet-sour beef stew—and oh, ragout of beef with cranberries and wild mushrooms….and did I mention, most of these recipes are accompanied by the most mouth-watering photographs of the finished product, photographed by Jason Wyche?

Another really enticing feature of “Falling-off-the-Bone” are the prefaces to each recipe, tips from the author – as an example, introducing “Sweet-sour beef stew”, Jean writes, “Such an easy stew and for me, a dinner party favorite. I make it one day, refrigerate overnight, and reheat shortly before serving. I vary the accompaniment, sometimes pairing with boiled unpeeled redskin potatoes, sometimes with steamed rounds of sweet potato or boiled brown or white rice. Note to save time, I use the bagged-in-plastic peeled baby carrots now sold at most supermarkets”

And, let me add that almost all of the ingredients to make sweet-sour beef stew are items you most likely have in your refrigerator or pantry.

The Beef section contains many more delectable-sounding recipes, “That Fiery Beef Bowl of Red” “Green Chili with pinto beans”, “Texas Beef ‘n’ Beans” and “Picadinho de Carne” which is a fancier way of describing a Brazilian influence to making chili. There is, I’m happy to say, a recipe for Beef Bourguignon and a slow ‘n’ easy Austrian Goulash (I haven’t tried this last recipe yet but reading it, I sense that it’s quite similar to my grandmother’s Goulash, so it will be interesting to do a comparison.)

However, there is also a recipe for Hungarian Goulash with sauerkraut – I grew up on Hungarian Goulash but we never had it with sauerkraut! Interesting!

Jean’s “Swiss Steak with Tomato Gravy” bears a slight resemblance to the Swiss Steak I learned to cook as a new bride – except THIS one sounds much better. Another recipe to mark with a post-it.

There are these and many more beef recipes that you will want to try—and we haven’t even reached the recipes for veal yet!

In the chapter for veal, you will find recipes such as veal stew with mushrooms and cauliflower, a Florentine classic called stufatino, veal paprikash, slow cooker blanquette de veau or veal and vegetable risotto.
Jean offers other slow-cooker recipes using veal, such as Slow ‘n’ Easy Veal Zingara, also sometimes called Gypsy’s Stew, and slow cooker Russian Goulash but there are many others to whet your appetite – Orange-and-Mustard-Glazed-Pot Roast of Veal, for instance, or Tuscan Veal Pot Roast In Lemon Sauce.

There is much to choose from in the chapter for lamb – and in its introduction, Jean reminds us to recycle leftovers, that no meat makes better curry than lamb and this includes leftovers that you can simply dice and add to a curry sauce. Jean likes to grind lamb leftovers and use them when she makes Greek classics like moussaka and pastitsio. Look for recipes such as barley, lamb, and lima soup (yum! Barley and lima beans are two of my favorite ingredients!) or Scotch Broth, mulligatawny (peppery lamb and coconut soup) or odds and ends lamb soup. There is also a recipe for Turkish Wedding Soup or Spicy Lamb Hot Pot with Juniper, an old fashioned Irish stew or a slow cooker lamb with raisins and toasted almonds.

There are so many recipes that call for pork – and I enjoy almost all of them – so I will just touch on some of my greatest favs – glazed sweet-sour spareribs, for instance, far east spareribs on sesame sauerkraut, ribs lanai-style with pineapple, slow cooker Brunswick stew with pork, pork bowl of red and gypsy goulash, pork paprika—and one you seldom see in a cookbook—pickled pig’s feet!

Much of Jean Anderson’s personality shines through on each page, and will entice you to try every single Falling off the Bone dish—as if you will need any encouragement once you take a look at all of Jason Wyche’s photographs.

This one’s a winner – but then, I believe all of Jean Anderson’s cookbooks are winners.

“FALLING OFF THE BONE” is available from Amazon com for $19.77 – or you can buy a pre-owned copy starting at $11.01.

Bibliography
 GRASS ROOTS COOKBOOK, DOUBLEDAY DELL PUBLISHING, 1974, 75, 76, 77, 92 (*The Grass Roots Cookbook is a outgrowth of magazine pieces originally features in Family Circle magazine)

 The Doubleday Cookbook VOL 2 (with Elaine Hanna). Doubleday: 1975. R.T. French Tastemaker Cookbook-of- the-Year as well as Best Basic Cookbook

 RECIPES FROM AMERICA’S RESTORED VILLAGES, Doubleday, 1975

 THE GREEN THUMB PRESERVING GUIDE, WILLIAM MORROW & COMPANY, 1976

 JEAN ANDERSON’S PROCESSOR COOKING, WILLIAM MORROW & COMPANY, 1979

 Half a Can of Tomato Paste & Other Culinary Dilemmas (with Ruth Buchan). Harper & Row, 1980. Seagram/International Association of Culinary Professionals Award, Best Specialty Cookbook of the Year.

 JEAN ANDERSON COOKS, WILLIAM MORROW & COMPANY, 1982

 JEAN ANDERSON’S NEW PROCESSOR COOKING, WILLIAM MORROW & COMPANY, 1983

 The New Doubleday Cookbook (with Elaine Hanna). Doubleday: 1985.

 The Food of Portugal. William Morrow: 1986. Seagram/International Association of Culinary Professionals Award, Best Foreign Cookbook of the Year

 The New German Cookbook (with Hedy Würz). HarperCollins: 1993

 The American Century Cookbook. Clarkson Potter: 1997

 The Good Morning America Cut the Calories Cookbook (co-edited with Sara Moulton). Hyperion: 2000

 Dinners in a Dish or a Dash. William Morrow: 2000

 Process This! New Recipes for the New Generation of Food Processors. William Morrow: 2002. James Beard Best Cookbook, Tools & Techniques Category

 Quick Loaves. William Morrow: 2005

 A Love Affair with Southern Cooking: Recipes and Recollections. Foreword by Sara Moulton. William Morrow: 2007

Also by Jean Anderson:
THE ART OF AMERICAN INDIAN COOKING (with Yeffe Kimball)
FOOD IS MORE THAN COOKING
HENRY, THE NAVIGATOLR, PRINCE OF PORTUGAL
THE HAUNTING OF AMERICA
THE FAMILY CIRCLE COOKBOOK (with the Food Editors of Family Circle Magazine)

This list is as comprehensive as I could make it, based largely on the dozen or so Jean Anderson cookbooks in my personal collection. I also checked with Google.com and Amazon.com for titles.

Happy Cooking! And when you aren’t cooking, read a good cookbook!

–Review by Sandra Lee Smith

MARGUERITE PATTEN’S STICKY GINGERBREAD RECIPE

Several readers have written to inqire about finding a recipe of Marguerite Patten’s that was printed on a recipe card as part of a set of recipe cards. I do have many of Marguerite Patten’s cookbooks but haven’t found this particular recipe in any of my cookbooks. I began googling it–and immediately found a reference to sticky gingerbread in MP’s cookbook “We’ll Eat Again” – a tribute to recipes eaten during World War II when all of the British suffered so much from intense food rationing (far more than we in the USA did). I do have ” We’ll Eat Again” but was more intrigued by a Google reference to Sticky Pudding ON the elusive recipe cards..However, while a photograph of the card itself is printed & on display on Google – I couldn’t seem to access the other side of the card for the recipe. That being said, here IS a recipe for Sticky Pudding from Marguerite Patten’s files “from We’ll Eat Again”:

Dark Sticky Gingerbread
6oz S/R flour (or plain flour with 3 tsp baking powder) pinch salt 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 1 tsp ground ginger 1 tsp ground cinnamon or mixed spice 1 tbsp dried egg, dry 2oz cooking fat 2oz sugar 2 good tbsp golden syrup or black treacle 1½ tbsp milk 6 tbsp water Line a 7 x 4 inch tin with greased greaseproof paper. Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Put the fat and syrup into a saucepan and heat until melted. Pour onto dry ingredients, add the milk and beat well. Put the water into the pan in which the fat and syrup were melted and heat to boiling point. Add to the other ingredients and mix well. Pour into the tin and bake in the centre of a very moderate oven (140ºC) for 50 minutes or until just firm. Cool in the tin for 30 minutes then turn out. Taken from: We’ll Eat Again by Marguerite Patten

Meanwhile I will go back to searching for the recipe on the elusive recipe card collection! – Sandy@ Sandychatter