Recipes Worth Sharing
From their beginning in the 1860's, community cookbooks have empowered women, raised untold millions of dollars for thousands of charitable causes, and preserved regional and ethnic culinary traditions in America. Historians and cooks are grateful to Sheila Thomas and the team at Favorite Recipes Press, whose passion for these books - the dedicated volunteers who make them possible and the recipes they preserve - has resulted in this volume, RECIPES WORTH SHARING lives up to its subtitle...Recipes and Stories from America's Most-Loved Community Cookbooks. --Jan Longone, Curator, American Culinary History, Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann ArborWow! What a fabulous collection of recipes! And many recipes can be easily and successfully followed by everyday cooks. Just as important, RECIPES WORTH SHARING celebrates the art form of the community cookbook and honors the volunteers who have chipped in their best recipes. Long may community cookbooks and their contributors thrive and inspire home cooks. --Andrew F. Smith, Editor in Chief, The Oxford Companion to American Food and DrinkRECIPES WORTH SHARING, a celebration of home cooking, reinstates the importance of the role of women in their kitchens as well as in their communities. This book stands as a testimony to the groups of women across America who have raised funds for charitable organization by producing cookbooks that feature favorite recipes. Producing cookbooks to help a good cause is a distinctly American phenomenon that benefits not only the cause but also those of us who cook from these wonderful books. --Barbara Haber, Curator, Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institue for Advanced StudyI recently picked up a cookbook at a conference called Recipes Worth Sharing by Favorite Recipes Press. It s a collection of the most prized, tried and true tested home cook recipes from some of the most popular regional community cookbooks and charitable organizations in America. I remember my Mom and Grandmother would occasionally cook from these spiral-bound community cookbooks and they usually made some type of yummy salad or casserole dish for a Sunday family brunch or neighborhood potluck supper. Usually these cookbooks go unappreciated or overlooked, but this one deserves to be noticed.The reason I picked up this book was mainly because of the recipes themselves, not the beautiful photos which normally are what grab my attention when I pick up or buy a cookbook. The recipes are a collection of delicious comfort food, down-home favorites and are not particularly complicated to make but delicious all the same. A lot of these recipes remind of the Southern cooking I experienced and learned to make when I lived in Atlanta and made trips to Savannah, Charleston and New Orleans - lots of seafood, fresh veggies and salads, grilled and roasted meats, pasta dishes, homemade breads, pies and desserts, and of course the delicious creamy casseroles made out of basically EVERYTHING under the sun. The foods and recipes in this book are the ones that your Grandmother and Mother probably made too, and passed along to their friends at church, bridge club or the local junior league. Fussy and stuffy recipes they are not, but simple, delicious and comforting they are indeed.The recipes in the book are organized in typical categories: Appetizers and Beverages, Breads and Brunch, Soups, Salads and Sandwiches, Entrees, Fish and Seafood, Vegetables and Sides, Cakes, Pies and Cookies, Desserts, and Kid s Recipes. I ve gone through the book and picked out a sampling of my favorite recipes below (a few from each category) to share with you. I hope you enjoy them and maybe even try a few for your next potluck party or family picnic. --Kristen HessRECIPES WORTH SHARING, a celebration of home cooking, reinstates the importance of the role of women in their kitchens as well as in their communities. This book stands as a testimony to the groups of women across America who have raised funds for charitable organization by producing cookbooks that feature favorite recipes. Producing cookbooks to help a good cause is a distinctly American phenomenon that benefits not only the cause but also those of us who cook from these wonderful books. --Barbara Haber, Curator, Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institue for Advanced Study