2009-11-26

Vintage cookbooks help recall Thanksgivings past

By Judith Pannebaker

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so it’s too late to offer a gaggle of groaning board recipes. However, it’s never too late to take a peek at past Thanksgiving feasts as described in old, long forgotten cookbooks.

I dislike cooking, but love cookbooks – and eating – so I frequently collect cookbooks from bookstores, thrift shops and antiques malls that offer vignettes, stories and period graphics in addition to gut-bustin’ recipes.

Here are a few of my favorites. To cop a phrase from Courier columnist Doug White, “Hope you enjoy the stories.”

‘A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband,’ 1917
I inherited my first period cookbook from my grandmother. “A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband,” by Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron, was published in 1917 by Britton Publishing Company, Inc. This charmingly written volume features “Bettina’s best recipes” – and a nostalgic look at times long gone. Read on:

“Bettina was more than delighted when she and Bob were invited to a family dinner at Aunt Lucy’s on Thanksgiving day. ‘It always seems to me the most comfortable and restful place in the world,’ she said to Bob. ‘And Aunt Lucy is such a wonderful cook, too. We’re very lucky this year, I can tell you!’

“Bob had slept late that morning, and consequently had eaten no breakfast, but he did not regret his keen appetite when Uncle John was carving the great brown turkey. ‘The children first, John,’ said kind Aunt Lucy. ‘The grown folks can wait.’

“Little Dick and Sarah had exclaimed with delight at the place cards of proud turkeys standing beside each plate. In the center of the table was a great wicker basket heaped with oranges, nuts and raisins.”

That day, Bob and Bettina sat down to Aunt Lucy’s Thanksgiving dinner that included Turkey with Giblet Gravy, Oyster Dressing, Mashed Potatoes, Creamed Onions, Cranberry Frappé, Bread and Butter, Celery, Plum Pudding and Hard Sauce, Nuts, Raisins and Coffee.

“The Country Kitchen,” 1938
Described as “the most original book of 1936,” “The Country Kitchen,” by Della T. Lutes, published by Boston’s Little, Brown, and Company, was in its 15th printing when I purchased my copy in an antiques mall in Maryland for $10.

It tells tales of a Southern Michigan country family in the 1870s that included an autocratic, obstinate, kindly and generous Father, whose Achilles’ heel was his appetite; a high-spirited Mother; and Delly, a little girl whose wide eyes and sharp ears eventually enabled her to put her family’s experiences into words.

Delly’s observations in this “cookbook” remain as entertaining and fresh as its first printing in 1935:

“Thanksgiving was the day of days, after my father’s birthday, for intimate family gathering and unstinted feasting. There were times when my mother resented the invasions of my father’s numerous relatives, but on this day she welcomed numbers. Only numbers could provide suitable scope for her prowess as a cook. A meager family of three, even though augmented by a hired hand, was no excuse for the array of meats, vegetables, cakes, cookies, pies and puddings and bread, and the orgy of preparations which, on this day, were her great delight.

“Two days before Thanksgiving my father beheaded Old Tom, filled the big brass kettle with boiling water, scalded and plucked him. The wing tips were cut off whole for brushing the hearth and the tail feathers were finally gathered up and tied together in the form of a duster.”

Try that, people, with your Butterball Turkey® purchased at H-E-B.

‘Eat, Drink and Be Merry in Maryland,’ 1932
Frederick Philip Stieff complied the recipes included in this august volume, which is sub-billed as “An Anthology from a Great Tradition.”

Published by GP Putnam’s Sons of New York, “Eat, Drink and Be Merry in Maryland” includes letters from then Baltimore Mayor Howard W. Jackson and the one-and-only Emily Post.

I spent a princely sum of $40 to acquire this classic cookbook and social commentary from the gift shop of the Maryland Historical Society. Considering that the author inscribed the book to a former owner in 1952, it was worth every penny!
Here’s an observation on the preparation of a wild turkey by a member of the Woodmont Rod and Gun Club in Washington County:

“Dress turkey, and if weather is cool, hang it outside on a porch or some convenient place for six or seven days before using. If weather is warm, hang in cold storage, but do not freeze it as freezing will take away the flavor of wild turkey.

“Prepare stuffing with fine bread crumbs and chestnuts as follows: Boil chestnuts until mealy, and mash them up fine. Put one-half breadcrumbs and half chestnuts with some butter and salt and pepper and mix up well. Stuff the turkey with this filling. Put in oven to roast, putting plenty of butter, salt and peper on turkey, also some small strips of bacon. Cover same with a cloth.
“While roasting baste thoroughly, and when turkey is about done, take the cloth off and brown in thoroughly.”

As they say, “Bon Appetit” and Happy Thanksgiving!