A Gift from the Previous Owner

More than a month has gone by without a published post! (I'm pretty sure there are some drafts half completed), and so much has happened - Traveling, Christmas, New Year's, Back to School (& work), Ike's 15 month birthday, our nephew's baptism, and Isla's debut modeling children's clothing, but mostly it seems like we are painting our living room.
My sister in law Wendy helped us pick out paint colors for the house and we have test splotches up in most rooms.  Over New Year's we got started with prepping and we've been priming and painting trim ever since.  It is our goal to have everything done by Isla's birthday, but I have a feeling we won't have the area by the TV or the bookshelf finished...and that still leaves the rest of the house and all the other things that need to be taken care of around here.

So, here's a post with nothing to do with all that...
When were were cleaning out the house there was a pile of papers for all the appliances, and in that pile was this notebook. 

Thinking it was just details about the house, I didn't look at it right away, but when I finally got around to reading it I was delighted.

It is contains "Selected Recipes from Members and Friends of Los Angeles District, California Federation of Women's Clubs," printed in March 1941.  The cover page has the quote, "Animals feed, man eats, wise men dine."

Printed 9 months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the book does not appear to be constrained by war rations and also doesn't contain too many of the "better living through chemistry" recipes that dominated the 50's.

The recipes are all over the place calling for obsolete ingredients (or things we use a different label for now, like "sweet milk" - that would be regular milk today).  There are minimal directions and indefinite oven temperatures (moderate oven).  Some recipes have names that probably don't do them justice - Mrs. Roach's Noodle Dish, Goop, Sand Tarts, Unusual Cocoanut Cookies, "Bridge Tease," Meal-In-One, and "A Silly Little Cake Recipe" are some of my favorites.

Many of the salads remind me of salads my Grandma Marie always made - fruit or fruit and tomato or avocado wedges arranged on lettuce with french or sweet dressing, and lots of savory jello salads.  There are many recipes I'm looking forward to trying, especially some of the desserts, that the previous owner was nice enough to make note of - coming sometime this year: oatmeal cookies, chess pie and sunny silver pie.

Some recipes are hard to beleive - I've already come across two recipes for tomato soup cake (calling for a can of soup of course!), and if that is hard to beleive, I've also come across two recipes for Pork Cake - it starts with dissolving 1/2lb pork fat in 1 1/2 C boiling water! Also featured - Two Toned Meat Loaf, Molded Veal, and Shrimp Tardo.

Some of the recipes claim to be quite old: "A 100-Year Old New England Indian Pudding" and "Cookies From An Old Recipe, bought at Stage Coach Inn, Locust Valley, L.I. (Used by Mrs. Thomas Jefferson)."
And some recipes are for those times when you want to get in touch with local heritage - "Empanadas - For California History and Landmarks Celebrations"  ("Em-pan-nah-das are little turnovers of pastry...").

Following all the regular recipes there are many pages of recipes for serving large crowds, of 50 or more.  The portions are impressive!

 I am so excited about trying these new recipes!