The Larkin Cookbook

Another vintage cookbook has turned up in Grandma Minnie's house: The Larkin Housewives' Cookbook from 1915. Minnie wrote her name on the first page, with the date October 27, 1919.

By the line drawings of attractive homemakers and their happy families, the book gives you a window into an era when hemlines were rising and women's hair was bobbed rather than pompadoured.

The book's 140 pages are filled with 548 recipes for everything from soups and sandwiches to pickles and preserves. Imagine purchasing such a compendium of comestibles for a mere 30 cents!

The bulk of the recipes are "prize recipes selected from  more than three thousand submitted by practical housekeepers in the Larkin Recipe Contests."

On the first page of the section on sandwiches, one of the recipes was contributed by a resident of St. Johnsville, only a few miles from Minnie's hometown:

This recipe, the fourth one down on the page, sounds the most appealing to me, although I haven't tried it out yet: cream cheese and Roquefort cheese might make an interesting combination. But I would definitely reduce the quantities of all ingredients listed (and omit the butter!), unless intending to feed a large crowd, as the recipe mentions.

More about the Larkin Company next week!