"THE NEW ENGLAND YANKEE COOK BOOK"
1939 reprinted 1980?
Imogene Wolcott
Decorations by Edwin Earle and Alanson B. Hewes
It's easy to see why the Cookbook Collector's Library chose to reprint this 1939 treasure. It is full of hard-to-find references to old utensils, recipes and food lore and punctuated with attractive woodcuts and old photographs. Subtitled "An Anthology of Incomparable Recipes from the six New England States and a little something about the People whose Tradition for Good Eating is herein permanently recorded by Imogene Wolcott from the Files of Yankee magazine and from the Time-worn Recipe Books and many Gracious Contributors." Many of the recipes are attributed to their contributors, often including their address.
Chapters are punctuated with "R U A Yankee Cook?" quizzes, featuring questions like "What are the following utensils -- piggin? skeel? losset? keeler? noggin?" and "In what way does the housewife prepare the brick oven for Saturday's baking?" [She burns a couple of bushels of hard wood for about two hours; then rakes out the coals and deposits them in the chamber under the oven , and starts baking.]
Serves as a gracious introduction to the cooking of the New England region as well as a solid reference for old cooking terms. One of those cookbooks that reads like a series of short stories.
[See a sample recipe for Blueberry Slump from this cookbook.]
[Read about "Slumps and Grunts".]
[buy "The New Yankee Cook Book" at OldCookbooks.com]
Comments