The Blank Pages
The publishers were proud of an idea: every recipe page in this book faces a blank leaf headed MEMORANDA. The introduction sells it as “a valuable innovation” — somewhere to copy in or paste in “the recipe for each particular kind of dish” you get from friends and other sources. A cookbook you were expected to finish yourself.
Our copy has 155 of those leaves. Somebody used eleven of them.
She wrote in pencil and in ink, in a fast Palmer-method hand, and she dated two of the leaves: one Sept 21 — ’14, one Dec. 1927. She collected from her friends and wrote their names underneath — Mrs. Anne Snyder, Mrs. Stowasser, Mrs. Shaffer, Em. Burson. And, like everybody who has ever started a recipe binder, she filled in the front of the book and then stopped: every written leaf falls in the first fifty pages, among the breads, the beverages and the cakes. The remaining 144 blanks are exactly as they left the bindery.
Handwriting defeats optical character recognition completely — run through a machine these pages come out as “Com Salad— 18 laige rais lon.” So they are transcribed below by eye, in 2026, from the photographs of the leaves. This is not part of the printed book, and it is kept apart from it for that reason. It is what one cook added to her copy.
Corn Salad
18 large ears corn. 3 green peppers. 4 large onions. 1 head cabbage. 4 small cups sugar. Salt to taste. 2 quarts vinegar.
Chop all fine. Corn from cob — boil in vinegar 1 hour. Mix 3 tablespoons mustard, add just before removing from fire. Seal. 9 pints.
Potato Doughnuts
Written down from Mrs. Anne Snyder
3 large potatoes mashed. 1 cup milk. 2 cups sugar. 3 eggs. Nutmeg. 1 tablespoon melted butter. 4 teaspoons baking powder. 6 cups flour — 1 cup at a time.
Schmalsing
Written down from Mrs. Stowasser
1 cup sugar. ¼ cup jelly or jam. 2 eggs. Some raisins. ¾ cup butter. 1 t-s. cinnamon. 1 t-s. allspice. Little nutmeg.
Make pretty solid.
India Relish
3 onions. 1 large red pepper. 8 green tomatoes. 8 large apples. ½ box of raisins. ½ box sugar. ¼ cup salt. 1½ pt vinegar. 1 dessert spoon cinnamon, allspice. ½ d-s. cloves.
Chop all together, simmer ½ hour, seal while hot.
9 drops of lemon juice
…to make cream whip.
Conserve of Mixed Fruit
3 peaches. 1½ quinces. 1½ pears. 1 apple. 2 slices of lemon.
Pass all through food chopper, weigh. Allow 3 lb of sugar to 1 lb of fruit. Place alternate layers of fruit and sugar in preserving kettle. Let stand overnight. Then simmer till quite thick. Seal.
Mrs. Harding's Waffles
2 eggs. 2 t.s. sugar. 2 heaping T.s. butter. 1 pt milk. 1 pt flour. 2 heaping t.s. baking powder. 1 t.s. salt.
Beat egg yolks, sugar, salt and flour and milk smooth. Add butter melted, and just before baking add baking powder and stiff egg whites.
Pie Crust
Written down from Mrs. Shaffer
2 cups sifted flour. ¾ cup lard. ½ cup water. ½ teaspoon salt.
Baked Apples
Written down from Mrs. Schaffer
Fill centre with red cinnamon drops.
Dill Pickles
1 cup salt. 8 cups water. Boil and cool.
Put a layer of grape leaves, then a layer of dill, then pickles, etc. Pour over the boiled salt water. Let stand three days. Pour off, boil and cool, pour on again. Will be ready for use in three weeks.
Cold Pickle
Written down from Em. Burson
1 gal vinegar. 1 cup sugar. 1 cup ground mustard. 1 cup salt.
Wash pickles, place in jar and pour mixture over them.
Xmas Cookies with Honey
Headed “Dec. 1927 —”.
2 lbs honey. 2 lbs flour — scant. 1 lb almonds chopped. 1 cup citron sliced. Lemon rind. Nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves — 1 tr. each. 1 cup sugar. 3 eggs beaten. 1 t.s. soda in a little vinegar.
Heat honey and cool, add flour, eggs, nuts, soda. Let rise in a warm place for a week or more. Cut in squares, bake hard. Keeps very well.