A HARTE APPETITE: COMMUNITY COOKBOOKS PROVIDE TASTE OF AMERICANA

The novelist Joseph Conrad once remarked that a recipe was "the only product of the human mind altogether above suspicion." He said, "The intention of every other piece of prose may be discussed and even mistrusted; but the purpose of a cookery book is one and unmistakable. Its object can conceivably be no other than to increase the happiness of mankind."

I agree with Conrad wholeheartedly and I think his observation is especially applicable to community cookbooks, those collections of recipes from church groups, garden clubs, junior leagues and other organizations usually published locally as fund raisers. They are familiar items in most kitchens, and they invariably have frayed edges, food splattered pages and other signs of wear and tear because, perhaps more so than any other type of cookbook, they are bought to be actually used. And that, of course, is part of their great appeal. After all, as Glen Wimmer, a Memphis publisher of such books, notes, a cookbook by, say, Emeril Lagasse, can be rather intimidating. But a recipe from Mrs. Smith of the Junior League for something she cooks in her own home offers a level of comfort.

But community cookbooks offer more than just foolproof recipes that have been tested and modified by everyday cooks. According to Anne L. Bower, a professor of English at Ohio State University whom I met at a conference last year in Nashville, community cookbooks tell stories, stories about the lives of the people who put them together, their history, values and culture.

Certainly these cookbooks tell us about the changing role of women in our society. As Virginia Bartlett, a culinary historian who has examined more than 500 community cookbooks, points out, in previous eras men took the dominant role in households and it was the woman's job to cater to their appetites. Indeed, a woman's very self-concept might be rooted in her husband's position. Thus, in the early community cookbooks women rarely used their first names but instead referred to themselves through their husbands, sometimes going so far as to sign recipes as Mrs. Dr. Smith or Mrs. Judge Walker. One, Bartlett reports, even identified herself as Mrs. Ex-Governor Harden.

Early cookbooks frequently carried advertisements, and these ads, likewise, chronicle the changing status of women. Originally they were for items such as soap and makeup. As women began to assume greater decision-making power in the home, ads for major items such as farm implements started to appear. And as women began to enter the labor force, the cookbooks once again reflected their changing status by emphasizing convenience foods and quickly prepared recipes.

According to Bartlett, community cookbooks may have even contributed to women's suffrage by giving women the opportunity to develop useful skills as they solicited recipes, sold ads and edited their volumes. She notes that one community cookbook, published in Boston in 1888, "reads like a 'Who's Who' of women's suffrage."

Community cookbooks are a uniquely American institution whose origins can be traced back to the Civil War when Ladies' Aid Societies sold cookbooks to raise money for wounded soldiers and their families. The tradition continued after the war ended, and it really took off in the late 1860s and early 1870s. Today nearly 15,000 new community cookbooks are published every year. No wonder that some bookstores now specialize in them and that there's even a national competition, the equivalent of the academy awards for community cookbooks, to determine the best of the genre.

Almost everybody is getting into the act. For example, the Texas Rangers have published a cookbook. So have the nation's firefighters. The Family Advisory Board of the Central Intelligence Agency is working on one. Schools, churches, sports teams, symphony orchestras, museums and garden clubs have published cookbooks. There's a community cookbook from Alaska with recipes inspired by the television show Northern Exposure. There's one put out by a San Francisco PTA that features recipes for Spam. Even East Hampton, N.Y., a town you wouldn't think would need to do much fund raising, has one. It features recipes from, among other members of that community, Christie Brinkley, Chevy Chase and Martha Stewart.

A particularly intriguing community cookbook I've run across recently is the recipe collection published by the River Heritage Quilters Guild of Cape Girardeau whose quilt show, by the way, is coming up on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 26 and 27, at Centenary United Methodist Church. Among other activities, they'll have a silent auction of miniature quilts to raise money to benefit breast cancer awareness.

It makes perfectly good sense that a group of quilters should assemble a cookbook, for cooking and quilting are both activities which involve an amalgamation of varied components, often intricately, into a glorious whole. Moreover, quilts, no less than cookbooks, can be considered texts worth reading for the insights they yield about the life and culture of the women who produced them.

Paul McIlhenny of the Tabasco Co., which sponsors the annual community cookbook awards, says such books are "a truly American, democratic phenomenon that celebrates the great melange -- the bouillabaisse, if you will -- of American cooking and the local groups that put [them] together." The following recipes are good ways to celebrate both.

Thelma Stone's Apricot Chicken

Chicken and fruit make a great combination as this easy recipe from the River Heritage Quilters' Guild cookbook demonstrates. Mrs. Stone, one of only a very few certified quilt appraisers in this region, suggests serving this dish with rice and a green salad.

Ingredients:

12 boneless chicken breast halves, skinned

1 can (12 oz.) apricot nectar

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup apricot preserves

1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans

Directions:

Place breasts in 13-x-9 baking dish. Combine nectar and spices and pour over chicken. Cover and chill eight hours. Remove from refrigerator and let stand 30 minutes. Drain liquid and discard. Heat preserves over low heat until warm and brush over chicken. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, basting with preserves. Sprinkle with pecans; garnish with celery leaves if desired.

Blintz Casserole

This recipe, which is a lot easier than making individual blintzes, is from one of my favorite cookbooks, Cooking in Clover, published by the hospital auxiliary of the old Jewish Hospital in St. Louis and given to me some 20 years ago by Ruth Bygel who used to work in the hospital flower shop. I still consult the book regularly.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, melted

6 eggs, divided

1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup flour

3/4 cup sugar, divided

3 teaspoons baking powder

dash of salt

2 pounds small curd cottage cheese, blended until smooth

juice of 1 lemon

Directions:

Make batter by mixing butter, three eggs, milk, vanilla, flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder and salt. Pour half of batter into buttered two-quart baking dish. Make filling by mixing cottage cheese, remaining three eggs, remaining 1/4 cup sugar and lemon juice. Pour over batter in dish. Top with remaining batter. Bake at 300 degrees for 1 1/2 hours. Serve with sour cream or blueberry sauce.

Elvera Weber's Jello Salad

I have to admit I don't regard Jello as a special dish, except when it's prepared and served by the women at Trinity Lutheran Church in Altenburg. Not surprisingly their cookbook has an entire section on Jello salad with nearly 40 wonderful recipes. This one, from a fine Altenburg cook who used to be the mainstay of the production line at My Daddy's Cheesecake in downtown Cape, is especially refreshing.

Ingredients:

2 small boxes lemon Jello

2 cups diced apples, unpeeled

1/2 cup pecan pieces

4 cups apple cider

1/2 cup diced celery

Directions:

Heat two cups of the cider and dissolve Jello in it. Add rest of cider and chill until partially set. Add remaining ingredients and chill until firm.

Got a favorite community cookbook you'd like to tell our readers about? Send your choices to A Harte Appetite, c/o The Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, MO., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semovm.semo.edu.

~Tom Harte is a professor at Southeast Missouri Sate University and writes a food column every other week for the Southeast Missourian.