Bingo 11: Red
I thought I’d dropped something into a box of very old things belonging to my grandmother and great-aunt so I dug through it for the first time in a long while. Turns out I hadn’t dropped the thing (found it a few minutes later under something else) but it was not a wasted search because in the box was a church cookbook (probably my great-aunts) from the year I was born, and guess what color the cover is?
Going through a 43-year old cookbook is interesting. I was trying to figure what my great aunt might have contributed, but this meant trying to remember what her last name would have been at the time; around the time I was born, she lost her husband, so which name would she have used here? Some of the names of the ladies, and the contributors were all ladies except for 2 (maybe 3 depending on Jinx’s gender), are dated or slightly unusual. I’m not sure I’ve ever met someone named “Icey” or “Alpha”; at least Alpha’s last name wasn’t ‘Roach’. Poor Icey.
This is also most definitely a central mid-western cookbook; gelatine is most definitely present. I also haven’t hear anyone say “oleo” since childhood, and I don’t think they make apricot jello anymore. Interestingly, there was only one runza recipe. Guess how many ham loaf recipes there were? (Hint: more than fit on one page). Likewise on the peanut clusters…
Cake-mix sweet rolls (as in what look like a cinnamon roll using a cake mix base) actually sounds interesting, and I did locate what I think are my great-aunt’s two recipes. The oatmeal cookie recipe was a favorite of my dad’s (although I think my grandmother used raising instead of dates), and the grasshopper bars (actually named ‘chocolate mint squares and frosting’) looks vaguely familiar.
This was actually kind of a fun book, and I will definitely have to try a few things from it.