Grandma’s “Every-Day Cook-Book” #9: MRS. VAN WORMER’S RECIPE

(Smith-Post)

           L.Vern, Gma Ona, William & GrGrma Emma J. Smith, baby Emma F. 1925 (colorized)

(from original photograph)

Just before I “close the cover” on this series of posts highlighting the little treasures tucked between the pages of the cookbook my grandmother Ona Dort (Post) Smith received from her mother-in-law, Emma Jane (Emerine) Smith, I will share one last recipe I found penciled onto the inside front cover page. The “tell-tale e’s” remind me that this was copied in my great grandmother’s hand.

What once had only been a guess at the identity behind someone’s now-familiar handwriting seems more of a certainty with this final entry. Who else would dare to deface the cover page of a treasured book than the original owner who penned most of the recipes inserted between the book’s pages?  Emma Jane Emerine Smith.

This final find appears ironically fitting since it was the very first recipe I saw when I opened the scotch-taped cover of the antique cookbook for the first time. Seemingly unimportant, old-fashioned, and of little interest to me, I ignored it until now.

Here’s the recipe that my great-grandmother Emma penciled-in: “Mrs. Van Wormer’s Chow-Chow”

With the help of the World Wide Web, I discovered that Mrs. Van Wormer, wife of Charles, was Emma Jane’s neighbor, living "three doors down" the street in Milan, Michigan. In the 1910 census, she was listed as Mina, age 50, and she was only a year older than my great grandmother.

The act of including the contributor’s name in the recipe title was a respectful tribute. The formality of “Mrs. Van Wormer” (rather than using her first name) may suggest a desire to perpetuate her contribution for years (and, in this case, over one hundred) to come. At the turn-of-that-century, it would have been the polite and proper thing to do.

And, more importantly, the tradition of including someone’s recipe in with your own collection was a way to honor that homemaker's expertise. My grandmother and mother continued this tradition. Recipes were a big deal in their days. I might venture to say that sharing, collecting, and preserving handwritten recipes was the early 20^th Century version of Pinterest!

Today, I feel privileged to behold and share carefully-recorded recipes that were likely family favorites, each titled with the name of the relative or friend who passed them along.

In coming posts, I’ll share other handwritten recipes collected and saved in spiral notebooks by my grandmother Ona and by my mother, Emma F., including their versions of my great grandmother's, aka "Mother Smith’s," recipe for sugar cookies. 

The "fresh-from-the-oven" sugar cookies I loved as a kid were baked from a third-generation family recipe! Who knew?!