March 8, 2000
Historic Herald cookbook is a real page turner
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Butter, sweet cream, eggs, sugar, milk.
These are no-holds-barred recipes from the days when men were men, women were women and cooks were cooks. The 100 pages of recipes in the "Herald Century Cookbook" do not pull any punches in either ingredients or social commentary. In the preface, the editor rhapsodizes:
"This new Herald cook book editor takes great pleasure in offering this to Herald readers and others, hoping that it may in some small way help in the home making, which is the most beautiful part of all true womanly living."
A Traverse City original, this third edition of the "Herald Century Cookbook" was edited by M. E. C. Bates and published in 1889 by the Traverse City Herald, the region's first newspaper.
The "Herald Century Cookbook" is a prized addition to the extensive cookbook collection of Reba Thomas, an avid cookbook collector for more than 25 years. She found it a few years ago at garage sale and it joins a number of other local cookbooks in her collection: "Oak Park Kitchen Secrets" from students at Oak Park Elementary School, published in 1950, and "Traverse City's Treasure of Personal Recipes" compiled by the Women's Fellowship of the First Congregational Church and published in 1958 (proudly including a drawing of the new proposed church facility).
The "Herald Century Cookbook" weighs in at just over 120 pages, with more than more than 65 pages of desserts, including pies, ices, cakes puddings, fillings, frostings, cookies and layer cakes. It also includes 22 pages of breads, rolls, pancakes, biscuits and rusks (whatever those are) and a passing nod to salads, sandwiches and soups.
Rich and fattening are mild adjectives for these recipes. For example, Mrs. William Rennie's Cornstarch Cake includes: eggs, butter the size of an egg and sweet milk. New England Pancakes by Mrs. M. K. Buck include one quart of sweet milk, the richer the better, 1 tsp. white sugar, salt, 3 eggs and four cups of flour. Mrs. Buck recommends adding butter and syrup to each pancake as they are piled high on platters.
Readers will note that absent from the book is any listing of cooking temperature or duration. In the days of woodstoves, the stovetop and ovens were already preheated and experienced cooks knew what to do and for how long without minute-by-minute prompting.
Unusual recipes abound in the "Herald Century Cookbook," though they surely were common for their time. A pork cake listed in the Cakes section, which includes one pound of pork, two pounds of raisins and two cups of sugar, and 'flour to make as thick as a usual fruit cake.' Then there is coffee jelly, cucumber catsup or fried biscuits. But it is doubtful that sandwiches made from walnuts, crabapples or sweet pickled beets would be lunchbox favorites today.
While she has not tried any of the unusual recipes herself, Thomas has more than 200 cookbooks, scouring garage sales and auctions for her treasures. She is known for buying whole boxes of books at auctions, without sorting through them, hoping a cookbook is buried inside.
With her cupboards overflowing with them, she now has four boxes in her garage that she plans to give away.
"Sometimes I get duplicates because I don't remember what I have," said Thomas, a native of Acme. "I don't buy them just because they are old books, I like to read them. I like cookbooks."
Indeed, looking though her collection is a trip back in time. You can go from the "Joys of Jell-O" and 1961 Weight Watchers cookbook to a 1937 General Electric cookbook ("The new Art of Cooking") and a book of Fridgidaire Frozen Desserts (with an old-fashioned icebox gracing the cover). Then there are two handwritten books from 1958 called "Make it Now, Bake it Later," whose author precedes her recipe collection with the motto "Made in the morning, baked in the afternoon and served with pride."