As Thanksgiving approaches, many of us are digging out favorite holiday recipes or looking for something new to try. The Ladies Village Improvement Society has published cookbooks as a fund-raiser since the group’s founding in 1896, and the society’s 1908 “Cook Book” has some great holiday classics.
The ladies suggest pairing roast turkey with either a traditional cranberry sauce or, for something different, oyster sauce. While Caroline Homan Hedges (1846-1923) intended her apple stuffing to be used with goose or duck, it would work wonderfully with turkey. She preferred pairing turkey with her chestnut stuffing. The book also has her apple and cranberry jelly recipe.
Somehow, the ladies didn’t think we would need any green bean casserole recipes, and the entire vegetables chapter is rather limited, although canned vegetables are addressed in another section. There are two recipes for carrots, from Caroline Hedges and Mary Conklin Bell (1874-1963).
If you want to make a pie, be forewarned that these recipes from 1908 don’t include cook times or temperatures. Florence Osborne (1836-1913) offers a special Thanksgiving mincemeat pie, and there are more traditional dessert pies, like the pumpkin pie from Phoebe Osborn Huntting (1850-1941) or Caroline Hedges’s sweet potato pie. Caroline also offers instructions for sweet potato croquettes and Southern-style sweet potatoes.
The creamed sweet potatoes from Fannie Zeller Babcock (1863-1948) resemble modern mashed sweet potatoes. The baked sweet potatoes from Annie Conklin Homan (1858-1939) are basically mashed potatoes baked in sweet potato shells with sherry for extra flavor.
Harriet Van Scoy Dayton (1861-1933), Mary Ranger Talmage (1863-1911), and Florence Osborne provide several options for making traditional cornbread.
Looking for ways to use up the inevitable leftover turkey? The L.V.I.S. has you covered, with Frances Hedges Payne’s turkey soup and turkey hash from Mary Lucia Stratton Hedges (1867-1951).
For additional holiday recipes, check out the Long Island Collection’s latest display, “The Way We Cooked in East Hampton,” in the library’s front lobby. Included is a case of recipes for special occasions.
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Andrea Meyer, a librarian and archivist, is head of collection for the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.
