The New England Yankee Cookbook

Posted on | January 14, 2010 | 5 Comments

new england cook books The New England Yankee Cookbook

A foodie friend sent me a link to The New England Yankee Cookbook and The Salt Book: Lobstering, Sea Moss Pudding, Stone Walls, Rum Running, Maple Syrup, Snowshoes, and Other Yankee Doings last week. He figured they would be up right up my alley. The New England Yankee came yesterday in the mail. Originally printed in 1939 the cookbook is a collection of recipes and stories from New England. The recipes were compiled from the files of Yankee magazine and “time-worn recipe books”. Notes below many of recipes include names, addresses, and origins of the recipe recalling a time when we didn’t associate each other by our blog or twitter names. Desire’s Baked Plum Pudding ["My great grandmother's Thanksgiving pudding"—Edith W. Webber, 16 Thorndyke St., Beverly, Mass.]

Many variations on a single recipe appear in the cookbook giving the reader the option to dispute who’s baked beans really are the best? Boston Baked Beans, Vermont Baked Beans with Maple Syrup, New Hampshire Baked Yellow Eye Pork and Maine Baked Beans Lumberjack Style. Explanations to why New Englanders eat Baked Beans (Puritan influence) on Saturday nights and how that tradition still continues in thousand of homes to this day. I understand this book was written in 1939 but I can tell you for a fact, New Englanders still enjoy a good Bean Supper on a Saturday night.

Flipping through the pages I recall recipes from my own childhood like New England Pot Roast, Brown Bread, Parker House Rolls, Maine Molasses doughnuts, and Fish Chowder. Every Sunday for pretty much my entire childhood my father made Pot Roast. I have memories of loving it when I was kid, hating it when I was teenager and now today wanting to make it again to remind me of those Sundays with my dad. Recipes tell the stories of our pasts and our families. Buy now through amazon.com

Category: books, cooking

Comments

5 Responses to “The New England Yankee Cookbook”

erin
January 14th, 2010 @ 4:01 pm
so sweet. and i’ve never made baked beans myself, but now i have a hankering.
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hampton hostess
January 14th, 2010 @ 8:06 pm
the book looks fabulous–there must be so many great, classic recipes in the book. Thanks for sharing! best, barbara
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Nancy Gail Ring
January 15th, 2010 @ 12:11 pm
What a beautiful post. I love old cookbooks and own several, and blog about old recipes as you know. I love your point that multiple recipes give the reader a chance to vote for their favorite – the new Food and Wine issue has this as its theme this month and the editor there wrote her editorial about it. A great place to peruse old cookbooks online (and even search by recipe) is a site called Feeding America.
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jen jafarzadeh
January 15th, 2010 @ 1:57 pm
maybe that explains why I find so many ceramic bean pots up in Maine in all the antique shops. I still don’t get how they made beans in those heavy things!
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Katy Elliott
January 15th, 2010 @ 7:55 pm
Jen, have you ever been to a bean supper in Maine? I’ll meet you there this summer and we can go to one.
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