I am desperately searching for a specific recipe to feed to company. They arrive tomorrow.
Rummaging through my rag-tag pile of cookbooks, a book title jumps out at me, one I purchased at a yard sale—Farm Journals’ Country Cookbook, Copyright 1959.
This is a cookbook chock full of recipes that will put meat on your bones and cellulite on your thighs. No short-cut, low-fat, sugar-free recipes between these hardback covers. But every recipe is guaranteed to be delicious.
I need a good peach cobbler recipe and so open the yellowing pages and turn to the Table of Contents. This 50-year-old cookbook was written by and for farm women so the original authors would have been horrified at the idea of one chapter for sweets.
No, this wonderful old book has four chapters crammed with dessert options. Spring, blueberries in the summer, etc. Soon I find “fresh peach cobblers” and hit the jackpot. I should start peeling peaches, but cookbooks are so much fun to read that I continue.
I page through Bavarian creams, instructions on how to freeze and ripen ice cream, baked puddings and finally reach the second chapter of sweets.
This tasty undertaking is labeled ‘Country Cakes and Frostings’ and devoted to every possible combination of cakes and icings.
You might think that this cookbook would be boring and repetitive but the imagination of the old-time cake bakers is amazing. I’m mystified at the title, Potato Chocolate Cake? What is it? Easy answer—mashed potatoes added to the batter.
I stop and read the instructions on ‘how to raise money at a cake walk.’ Thelanguage is sweet and sincere:
‘Cakewalks… provide entertainment for a crowd and raise money for worthy causes…the best cooks in the neighborhood vie with each other…the idea is to produce a cake that is showy and glamorous and delicious.’
A memory of dear Aunt Hilda serving poppy seed cake at her dining room table comes to mind and an unexpected wave of nostalgia passes over me.
I move on to the next dessert chapter: ‘Popular Pies.’ Long story short—you have never seen so many pie recipes in any one place.
A recipe for mulberry pie is even included with directions on gathering mulberries. I could be wrong but not many people—other than me, my sister and our cousins—probably remember eating mulberries.
Mulberries (to the uninitiated) are somewhat like blackberries and grow on trees. Back in the old days, women gathered large amounts of these delectable treats by shaking the tree branches so the berries fell onto an old bed sheet spread on the ground.
The final dessert chapter features cookies. Again delicacies of every possible sugar, egg and shortening combination rest within these pages.
My eyes are beginning to glaze and the thought of so much sugar blunts my razor -sharp senior brain, so I close the book. But not before I check out the ‘Wild Rose Cookies,’ a disappointment since these cookies don’t include petals in the dough but look rose-like.
All good things must come to an end, so I read the peach cobbler recipe and get to work, reluctantly peeling peach skins, a task I’ve managed to avoid but must finally tackle.
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