Cookbook Archaeology - Graduate Studies
Ma's Cookin' is the third, and least, of the cookbooks our friend unearthed while clearing out her mother's house and was kind enough to give us.
The cookbook is copyrighted circa 1966 by Ozark Maid Candies, which interestingly enough still exists, according to Google. It's a slim book, only 56 pages in total. Though it's generally wrong to equate size with quality, in this case less is probably best. The cover illustrations offer a version of the bucolic hill country life style that I'm sure no one could argue with, the wife (presumably) dropping a chicken into the pot while the husband (again presumably) sits in the shade taking a nap, his trusty corncob pipe and jug of 'shine by his side. Quite a bit like life here in Chez Waring.
Inside, the contents are much what one would expect to see from a tome professing to reveal the secrets of mountain cookin'. There's Drinks and Such, Main Vittles, Side Vittles, Puddin's An' Pies and finally, Jest Plain Foolishness. As you can see, mountain folk don't hold no truck with proper punctuation or spelling (or edumacashun either I 'pect). And the country yokel method of diction is carried on in the actual recipes, or least the introductions to each of the recipes. The instructions themselves are written in standard English. It's kind of cute for about 2 minutes, but soon loses its charm.
Still, there is some interesting information to be mined here. Like, not one but two different recipes for persimmon pudding. And another for paw paw pie, a fruit I don't think I've ever seen in a market. I think I'll probably take a pass on the cheese pie, which has cottage cheese as the main ingredient, though. It sounds interesting, but I'm thinking in the Chinese version of the word. Not in the, "Hmm, that sounds quite good and worth a try," type interesting. Perhaps I'm being unfair. Then again, maybe I'm not.
The Side Vittles are pretty much limited to taters, corn and greens. Starch, starch, and veggie. Check. Main Vittles is a little more extensive, although a significant number of recipes require deep frying or pan frying as the cooking method of choice. Then again, it is a book from a much more innocent age, a time before cholesterol and trans-fats.
Other than the desserts, there really wasn't much I found illuminating in this cookbook, unlike the other two I reviewed. It's pretty much mid-twentieth century home cooking. Most of the recipes can be found (in an updated version) in the Joy of Cooking. And by the way, I'm not kicking Joy of Cooking. It is without a doubt the single most useful cookbook I have ever used
