Cook Book of Muskogee City Federation of Woman's Clubs

Muskogee's oldest surviving cookbook was published in August, 1910. "Cook Book of Muskogee City Federation of Woman's Clubs" illustrates the continuing development of the old practice of sharing recipes.

Since the beginning of time, cooks orally passed recipes down to their children. Many men and women cherish recollections of being in the kitchen at a young age. However, showing and telling family members how to cook is not the only way to transfer recipes to the next generation.

As the use of writing developed, cooks used written recipes to help sons and daughters master the intricacies of cooking. The first recorded recipe was written on wet clay with a wooden stylus. Then came writing in ink on vellum rolled up in scrolls. Very few of these found their way into the average home.

Working class families began having written recipes in their homes only after Gutenberg developed the printing press. Over the centuries, many cookbooks were printed. Until Fannie Farmer standardized them, however, recipe measurements were imprecise. "A finger of butter" was a common early measurement that varied by the size of the cook's hand.

Ms. Farmer's cookbook, "The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook," expressed her views on standardized measurements in 1896. The 1918 edition of this work is online at http://www.bartlesby.com/87/

By the time the Muskogee cookbook was published, Fannie was famous for her "level" measurements. As simple as it seems today, cooks of a hundred years ago measured a cup of flour as both less than a cup and as a "heaping" cup.

In addition to variances in quantities of ingredients, cooks faced problems with the cooking process. Ovens of Fannie Farmer's day used more wood, or less wood, to control the amount of heat.

Here is the recipe from Muskogee's cookbook for an "Old-Fashioned Pound Cake."

One pound of butter;
one pound sugar;
one pound flour;
ten eggs;
one-third nutmeg.
Mix thoroly; [sic]
beat four hours. [This should read "beat four minutes."]
Bake three-fourths hour in slow oven, in round pan.

Fannie Farmer's 1918 recipe for Pound Cake calls for

one pound of butter,
one pound of sugar and
one pound of flour. Fannie also used
ten egg whites and
ten egg yolks. For flavoring she added a
half teaspoon of mace and
two tablespoons of brandy.

Here is how she mixed the batter and baked her cake.

Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, and continue beating; then add yolks of eggs beaten until thick and lemon-colored, whites of eggs beaten until stiff and dry, flour, mace, and brandy. Beat vigorously five minutes. Bake in a deep pan one and one-fourth hours in a slow oven; or if to be used for fancy ornamented cakes, bake thirty to thirty-five minutes in a dripping-pan.

If you have an old recipe you want to share, be sure to tell who passed it down to you.