HIdden Treasures in Old Maine Cookbooks
Several contributor-generated Maine cookbooks from the 1960s and 1970s.
Gram sat at the kitchen table and opened the daily newspaper until she found the IGA flier with specials on ham and roast beef and canned corn, but most importantly, coupons for 20 cents off this or that item. She cut out the coupons she could use and put them in a pile.
As she began folding up the newspaper, she spied a short article entitled, “Do you pride yourself on being a good Maine cook?” Come to find out, the 150th anniversary of Maine’s statehood was fast approaching (1970), and the cooking editor at Rockland’s Courier-Gazette wanted Mainers to send in their most cherished recipes…the older the better. If any recipe was chosen for the upcoming book, the person who submitted it would receive a complimentary copy.
Always up for free things, my grandmother sent off some of her recipes in an envelope that she placed in her mail box by the road, next to the Canadian border.
Annie Rogers, left, and Loana Shibles testing clam cakes for one of their books, All Maine Seafood.
The Rockland cooking editor and her assistant, Loana Shibles and Annie Rogers, finally chose about 400 recipes mailed in by over 300 Mainers.
Each recipe chosen included the name of the person who submitted it, where they lived, and any additional information such as the originator of the recipe or how long their family had been using it. The editors made sure each recipe was understandable and consistent, but they made few comments of their own. The people of Maine were the real authors.
Several months later, Gram went out to her mail box and discovered inside her free copy of Maine’s Jubilee Cookbook.
I was in the dark about Gram submitting any recipes. There may have been some faint mention amongst relatives when I was younger, but I never saw the cookbook she was given.
She told me that she wasn’t a good cook. Her mother had died young and wasn’t able to teach her things. Yet Gram married into a family where she had to cook for a lot of people at times. Some years she fed both her family, plus her in-laws, and any hired men working on the farm.
Fannie Farmer.
After Gram’s death, I was given her 1917 edition of Fanny Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. I remembered seeing it in her baking pantry, off from the main kitchen, where she kept two bread boxes (one for bread and one for cakes), glass jars filled with cookies, and a variety of colorful aprons hung behind the door. Her handwritten recipes were still stuck between the pages of the Boston book. I smiled as I thumbed through it, noting grease spots on the donut pages.
Ruth Clark Wiggin in younger years. A Rockland Courier-Gazette editor, along with Loana Shibles, for the book, All Maine Cooking. Wiggin also edited Maine Coastal Cooking.
During my college years, I kept her book amongst other family books at a close relative’s house. When I finally had my own place, I went back to retrieve Gram’s book. On the shelf were dozens of other cookbooks including my mother’s local 1948 Eastern Star cookbook and her 1947 edition of the Boston one. But Gram’s older, thicker edition was missing. Either someone had taken it on the sly while visiting the house, or it was given outright to a guest by someone who didn’t know I had claims to it.
LIfe went on. For awhile, I didn’t miss Gram’s recipes. As time went on, however, I began wanting to replicate some of the old family dishes. I was beginning to appreciate what was now lost and began searching for recipes similar to the foods I remembered.
One day while rummaging through a tiny secondhand store, I found several paperback Maine cookbooks that were edited by Loana Shibles. I knew she had compiled recipes for six cookbooks in the 1960s and 70s, along with Ruth Wiggin and Annie Rogers. My mother at one time owned several of her books, two of which are no longer available except through the library: All Maine Fruit and All Maine Poultry.
Boiled caramel frosting.
The used copies in the store were less than a dollar each, so I bought them all.
Later, while looking for brownie recipes in my copy of the Jubilee Cookbook, I saw a recipe for “quick” boiled caramel frosting, something I had never heard of before. The contributor was an Amy Russell of Fort Fairfield.
Gram.
After I made the brownies, I cooked up her frosting. The flavor, combined with the chocolate brownie, was incredibly good. Her instructions were succinct; I was able to make the frosting right the first time, not realizing until later that boiled frosting is not the easiest thing to do.
I checked similar recipes on the Internet and in cookbooks. None were as simple as Amy’s. My grandmother, it appeared, was brilliant—at least with frostings.
Chocolate brownie with caramel frosting.
I then started looking more carefully at the recipes and their contributors in Loana’s books. Discoveries included the following:
Mashed potato pancakes from Mrs. R. Fred Harmon of Caribou and tuna fish scallop from Lorene Hackett of Fort Kent. Irish bread from Carrie Libby of Palmyra, caramel candy from the famous Brownie Schrumpf of Orono, and sauerkraut cake from Annie Rogers of Thomaston. Other interesting dishes: a 200-year old gingerbread recipe from Lillian Clarkson of Weld, pork cake from Gladys MacIlroy of Bridgewater, divinity fudge from Ruth Wiggin of Rockland, and Needhams from Ann Day of Thomaston.
A tourtiere a la viand (port pie) came from Mrs. Rosario Tardiff in West Bowdoin, and Swedish meatballs from the governor’s wife, Mrs. Ken Curtis of Augusta. I found many Indian pudding recipes including one from the Nordica Homestead and a Passamaquoddy Bay one submitted by Ethel Hilton of Cape Neddick.
A traditional Maine lobster roll.
Another former governor’s wife, Mrs. John Reed of Fort Fairfield, submitted the lobster casserole recipe she served at the Blaine House, and US Senator Ed Muskie’s wife from Waterville shared her baked stuffed lobster dish. The famous cookbook author, Marjorie Standish of the Maine Sunday Telegram, gave several of her recipes including oven-creamed potatoes and escalloped oysters. Seafaring Captain Lewis of Ash Point shared his cream lobster recipe, and Mother Hubbard’s clam pie—created by the wife of a clam digger—was submitted by Flossie York of Kennebunk.
Marjorie Standish.
Apparently Gram did not include just one recipe. She shared at least one other—for Maine blueberry muffins—which I later discovered in the same cookbook.
Marjorie Standish published two popular cookbooks: Cooking Down East and Keep Cooking—The Maine Way. Although she collected recipes from a number of people, the entries in her books do not include the contributors’ names.
The same goes for Brownie Schrumpf, cooking columnist for the Bangor Daily News. She also produced two cookbooks documenting traditional Maine foods: Memories from Brownie’s Kitchen and The Flavor of Maine. The recipes in her books, like most cookbooks nowadays, are mostly anonymous or ones she created.
Mildred “Brownie” Schrumpf.
Recently, two Maine recipe books, published during Maine’s bicentennial, contain lots of photographs and stories, as well as recipes from long ago and from more recent times attributed to specific individuals: Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook and Maine Community Cookbook Volume Two. The recipes include some that our ancestors would have used and some that were brought to the state by newcomers.
But the older cookbooks from earlier generations also have a place in our lives. The recipes and their contributors were gathered from all parts of Maine back when things were much different than they are today. A regional history, of sorts, and an honest one. You never know when you might discover the name of your great-grandmother or great uncle—or another such relative—in print.
Gram’s table setting in progress, for guests on Thanksgiving.
On a more personal note, Gram’s recipes are not that unique or special to most. But for me, they are an unexpected treasure to pass on to family who never knew her but who can participate in cooking foods similar to the way she did so many years ago. By so doing, they might experience a little bit of their Maine heritage.