Poring over old recipes and ancient cookbooks is like searching for buried treasure. You never know what gems may be hidden in the dusty, yellowed pages.
That’s how I felt when Akron resident Bob Newnham emailed me awhile back, asking if I was interested in a book of handwritten recipes that he believed was from the early 1900s.
Newnham is a retired pharmacist and a collector of pharmaceutical memorabilia. The recipes were contained on the pages of a date book that was printed as a promotional giveaway by Pepto-Mangan Gude, a drug from that era which claimed to increase the amount of hemoglobin in the blood.
My research indicates that Pepto-Mangan, made by the M.J. Breitenbach Co., was viewed by the medical community as more snake oil than real cure, which may be why the company spent a lot of money on advertising and promotions like the date book that Newnham found.
Because he had two of the books, he shared the one filled with recipes with me. It was missing its cover and all of its pages beyond April 16.
Newnham didn’t recall where he had picked up the books. They were in a box of items he had collected years ago.
The yellowed pages begin on Saturday, Jan. 1. A check into calendars of the era indicates that the year would have been either 1897 or 1910, when Jan. 1 fell on a Saturday. The 1910 date makes more sense based on the years that Pepto-Mangan was produced.
As I flipped through the recipes, I couldn’t help asking myself the same question over and over, “Whose recipes are these?”
There’s no name to indicate who the book belonged to. Was she someone’s mother or grandmother? Was it a she? Am I assuming correctly that most of the cooking and canning at the time was done by women?
The neat cursive handwriting, sometimes in pencil and other times in black ink, doesn’t really give any hints. It looks as though it could be from two different writers. Perhaps this log was handed down from mother to daughter.
At the top of Jan. 1 is written, “Receipts for Baking & Cooking” followed by a recipe for “Poverty Cake,” which includes in its list of ingredients, “1 cup of damp sugar” (an old term for brown sugar) and “a piece of butter the size of a walnut.” Another recipe calls for “butter the size of a hickory nut.”
A walnut I can visualize, but a hickory nut I’ve never seen.
Often the recipes include no instructions, but merely a list of ingredients. I suppose most homemakers at the time would have known how to mix up a cake batter or a batch of biscuits.
Other recipes did have more detailed instructions, including one on Jan. 29, entitled simply “Beef,” for a dish of cooked white rice, tomatoes and ground beef, layered in a casserole, then topped with a dotting of butter and a sprinkling of flour and baked.
I was surprised by a recipe that called for “1 can of tomato soup,” and others that called for Crisco and Jell-O. Perhaps the formulas weren’t as old as I thought, but just jotted down on the pages of an old calendar. That was before I discovered that Campbell’s began canning soup in the late 1800s, Crisco came out in 1911, and Jell-O was introduced in 1845.
A few of the recipes called for a specific oven temperature, so perhaps the book was a work in progress over many years. It was the 1940s before ovens had temperature dials on them.
As much as I wondered where these recipes came from, I also wondered whether they would still work. So I headed into the kitchen to give a few a try.
I was surprised that they turned out OK. Some better than others. I chuckled that a recipe for Chocolate Cream Cake called for just 2 teaspoons of cocoa powder and had only a slight chocolate flavor.
A recipe for Butterscotch Cookies produced cookies that were chewy and buttery the day they were made, but turned hard after a few days.
A favorite was a recipe for Corn Fritters that were light and tasty, especially after I improvised and gave them a dusting of confectioners’ sugar.
Keep in mind that all three are far from modern eating. None of the sweets are as sweet as we expect our desserts to be today, so don’t be disappointed if the chocolate cake isn’t very chocolatey and the cookies are a tad plain.
Try them if you want to party like it’s 1910.
BUTTERSCOTCH COOKIES
1 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
4 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. soda (baking soda)
1 tsp. cream of tartar
(Editor’s note: The original recipe included only the ingredient list. Here are instructions I added on:)
Sift together flour, salt, soda and cream of tartar.
In a separate bowl with an electric mixer, cream butter (softened) and sugar together well. Add eggs and mix well to combine.
Add dry ingredients a cup at a time, mixing after each addition so that all flour is well-incorporated.
Drop by teaspoonfuls onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake in oven that has been heated to 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown.
Makes about 6 dozen cookies.
CHOCOLATE CREAM CAKE
1 cup granulated sugar
Butter the size of a walnut (2 tbsp.)
1 cup rich cream (heavy cream)
1 well-beaten egg
2 cups flour sifted with 2 teaspoonfuls each of baking powder and cocoa or chocolate grated fine
1 tsp. vanilla
Bake in a loaf pan or in layers putting together with white icing.
(Editor’s notes: The original recipe had no instructions, so add these:)
Sift together flour, baking powder and cocoa powder.
With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla and mix well. Alternately add a third of the cream, then a third of the flour, mixing well after each addition until all of the cream and flour have been combined, scraping down sides of bowl with a spatula.
Batter will be very thick. Spread in a large loaf pan that has been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.
Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 1 hour or until cake tester or toothpick inserted into center of loaf comes out clean.
Makes 1 loaf, 9-by-4-inches.
CORN FRITTERS
1 can corn (14- to 15-oz. size)
1 level teaspoonful baking powder
2 eggs
Salt
Pepper
1 cupful flour
Chop corn. Season as necessary with salt and a little pepper. Add baking powder, flour, egg yolks beaten.
Mix well and fold in stiffly beaten whites. Drop by spoonful in deep, hot fat. Cook until a golden brown. Drain.
Substitute chopped fresh fruit, or canned peaches, pears, apricots or pineapple. If fruit is not very juicy, add a spoonful of milk to batter.
Sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar for serving.
Makes 1 to 2 dozen fritters, depending on size.
(Editor’s notes: Drain the corn slightly. Chopping the corn is not necessary, but you can mash it up slightly. Beat egg whites in separate bowl and fold into corn/flour/yolk mixture.)
Lisa Abraham can be reached at 330-996-3737 or at labraham@thebeaconjournal.com. Find me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @akronfoodie or visit my blog at www.ohio.com/blogs/lisa.