Rummaging through my rag-tag pile of cookbooks, a title jumps out—Farm
Journals’ Country Cookbook,
Copyright 1959.
I remember buying it at a yard sale. It’s 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, so open the yellowing pages of this 50-year -old cookbook and turn to the Table of Contents.
This wonderful book, written by farm women, has four chapters crammed with dessert options.
The first chapter features seasonal desserts: rhubarb in the spring, blueberries in the summer, etc. I find a great fresh peach cobbler recipe and should start making it, but this cookbook is so much fun to read, I decide to take a few minutes and browse through the pages.
Leafing through “Bavarian creams… instructions on how to freeze and ripen ice cream…baked puddings,” I finally reach the second chapter of sweets, labeled “Country Cakes and Frostings.” It’s devoted to every possible combination of cakes and icings.
Theimagination of the oldtime 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 read 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.”
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— 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.
I finally reach the book’s final dessert chapter which features cookies. Delicacies of every possible sugar, egg and shortening combination rest within these pages.
My eyes begin to glaze with the thought of so much sugar, 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 re-read the peach cobbler recipe and get to work, peeling peach skins to make the delicious high calorie peach cobbler recipe found in this treasure of a cookbook.
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