Of the many community cookbooks I own, the book from the Ebenezer Luther League of Minneapolis, MN is by far my most intriguing. Compiled by the "Editorial Commitee" in 1924 in the hopes of raising funds for a proposed church, I gleefully doubt that anyone who contributed a recipe would realize how fascinated I would be some eighty-odd years later!
The small, pale book's history is a mysterious one; our meeting pure happenstance; I found the book this past Spring in an antique shop in downtown Fargo, North Dakota. The shop owner had no information on its provenance. How this simple, straight-forward attempt at fundraising for a new church building ended its adventure in my hands I do not not know, yet I am very happy it did...I love to wonder about its journey, its beginning, its middle, now me.
The book is worn but not battered, the pages are guilded with time-still intact. No notes, no hand-written thoughts, no clues to its adventure. Its $5.00 price a steal! I wonder as I flip through its 192 pages.
If you can not tell, I find the book fascinating! How differeent the world was in 1924! I marvel at the recipes, at the contributers! Who was Effie Swanson, and how many times did she serve her "chile con carne"? Was Mrs Porath famous for her fruit cake? How many jars of pickles did Mrs Anderson, Mrs Nelson, or Mrs Nyberg put up at the end of the short Minnesota summers? Did Mrs Gustafson speak English--her "mandel sprits" recipe is written in Swedish. Would Mrs Soderberg be happy to know that I, eighty-five years later, would be inspired to make her "Paradise Pudding" partly because it sounds so tasty, or because my grocer still stocks lemon Jell-o? I wonder...
And they must have been accomplished and savvy cooks! There is but little advice inside on what vegetables to serve with which meats, a few household hints where "a word to the wise is sufficient", yet there is little mention of pan size or oven temperature...a few ingredients are now impossible to find...
For today, the meat or vegetable recipes would be easy success. The baked goods and candies may be a bit more complicated. Trial and error would be key. Our pan sizes are standard and our oven temps more accurate--the price we pay in a modern world. How did their food taste? How these cooks would respond to my modern kitchen tickles my imagination!
Within these covers is more than a mere collection of recipes...there is a history lesson. Coconut is "cocoanut"; there is mention of Knox gelatin and Swan's Down Flour. There are dietary formulas and confirmation that "vegetables are valuable for the salts they contain and should be part of each day's diet". A small corner torn from a Swedish newspaper long ago marks a page of advertisers: a grocer on East Franklin Avenue, a beauty shop on 27th Avenue So, and an undertaker who could be reached at "Dupont 2074"!
Some of the recipes are written in prose and others are a bit more plain. How I enjoy this glimpse backward in time...and I shall forever wonder how the new church looked spanking new, how its construction got on, and how this curious little gem of a cookbook found its way to me. It seems to be nothing but simple kismet, yet I shall always wonder...
For a copy of a few selection from this old cook book click here;Download Recipe pdf Template-Ebenezer Cook Book selections