Childress Family and Friends Cookbook
As mentioned in an earlier newsletter, I have been compiling a family and friends cookbook. I tried nearly all of the 233 recipes and they are fanastic! The notes that accompany the recipes provide insights into family foodways.
About the Cookbook
I ended up with a box of recipes that belonged to my mother (Norma Childress). She learned to cook from her mother-in-law (Gladys Childress) after getting married at age 24. The Childress family recipes come out of a Midwestern farmhouse cooking tradition. My brothers and sister are excellent cooks. As we migrated out of the Midwest, we added recipes from the South, West, and England. The grandchildren also learned to cook well and added more contemporary recipes.
The recipes in my mother's box are often handwritten on scraps of paper. One recipe was written on the real-estate business card of my grandfather Dewey Childress. Other recipes were clipped from local newspapers or labels from cans or packages. When I went to college, I paid my younger brother Alan five cents per card to type up my mother's recipes. This was a great investment because many of the handwritten cards are now illegible.
In addition to family recipes, I have included recipes provided by friends and favorite recipes from church cookbooks. The recipes from friends often include their name (Mrs. Paupp's Chicken Casserole). Some recipes do not include specific measurements because many family members just combine things and taste as they go. Other recipes have minimal instructions because they assume that you know how to make pie crust or bread. I decided to leave the recipes as they are and leave it up to the reader to figure it out. You can write notes on the recipes as you learn things by making them. My mother's recipes have things crossed out and added as she made them. Most of the recipes from published cookbooks have been adapted or altered.
The contributors have been listed according to generation. Some trends can be discerned by generation. The Lost Generation recipes rely on basic ingredients, especially meat. The Silent Generation is influenced by corporate marketing. Their recipes include Jello, Campbell's soup, Quaker Oats, etc. Often, the recipes were provided on the can or package. The Baby Boomers, wanting to go back to the land, turned toward vegetarian recipes, while retaining the traditions of the older generations. The Millennials have added vegan and more culturally diverse recipes.
How to Order a Copy
The cookbook has 233 recipes and is 150 pages long. The price is $15, plus shipping. It is not available through Amazon or in any store. You must buy it directly from me. If you would like a copy, send an email to LynnDChildress@aol.com, include your address. We will work out the payment. I can take checks, money orders, PayPal, or Venmo.