What’s cooking?

Credit for this week’s topic goes to North Carolina Miscellany, a blog from the good folks at the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  They been sharing recipes from their collections and provided the inspiration to us to check out cookbooks in our collections.

Our oldest recipes come from the papers of William J. Martin, class of 1888. Martin has deep Davidson connections. The son of a professor, he also graduated from Davidson College, taught at the college and served as college president from 1912-1929 and –through his brothers and sisters was related to a number of Davidson families.  The archives holds records from his presidential term and also has personal papers.  Included in the personal papers is a handwritten cookbook used by his mother, Letitia Costin Martin.

How about a Rice Chicken Pie Or Oyster Pie with Tapioca Blanc Mange for a dessert?

Rice Chicken Pie and Oyster Pie recipes from Mrs. Martin

Rice Chicken Pie and Oyster Pie recipes from Mrs. Martin

Mrs. Martin's Tapioca Blanc Mange

Mrs. Martin’s Tapioca Blanc Mange

A well-used copy of the Civic Club’s Davidson Cook Book came to the archives in the 1990s.  Originally created around 1928, the cookbook is heavy on desserts with only a few pages of entrees.  The club members included a few “fun” recipes as well, include this one on Roasting a Husband.

The Davidson Cook Book cover

The cookbook doesn’t have many spills on it but did need tape to hold it together after years of use.

Civic club recipes including, "Roasting a Husband", "Chicken Croquettes", "Cold Salmon Loaf", and "Dumplings #1"

Was this really what people in Davidson were eating in the 1920s?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PTA recipes including, "Cheese Biscuits", "Cheese Biscuits", and "Coffee Cake"

PTA cookbook

In 1965, the Davidson PTA created The Village Cook Book as a fund-raiser to buy a new 50-star flag for the Davidson Elementary School auditorium. The book opened in good Southern fashion with cheese biscuits but showed some international flair with recipes for Egyptian Eggplant and Pastichio. There is also a nod to changing times with Easy Rolls for the Working Girl to Make submitted my Mrs. J. H. Ostwalt.

Cover of the Athenaeum book club cookbook

Cover of the Athenaeum cookbook

The ladies of the Athenaeum Book Club went very international with their 1966 club cookbook.  Members contributed recipes from a dozen countries including Sweden (Raspberry tarts, Caviar), Mexico (Ensalad  Estelo Sombero – which used cottage cheese, chili powder and pineapple), Holland (Pound cake), Pakistan (Potato Poories), and France (French toast).

Edible Wild Plants cookbook

Cattail cookies anyone?

Biology professor Tom Daggy produced a few cookbooks that were exotic in a different way. His recipes used local flora for ingredients and were developed and  taste-tested by students in his Wild Edible Plants classes.  Recipes include Dandelion Coffee, Wild Carrot Stew, Batter-Fried Thistle Buds and Elaegnus Popsicles.

If any of these recipes bring back food memories or if you took Daggy’s class or got roped in by a roommate to test any of the recipes, share your stories on our Community site.

Special points will be given to anyone with photographs relating to these recipes!

 

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