Memories accompany the recipes in the recently issued Williamstown Cookery: Celebrating 250 Years of Recipes, compiled by the Williamstown House of Local History.
Many of these recipes were handed down from long-vanished inhabitants, beloved or idiosyncratic. And the recollections accompanying them evoke a vanished time, and some vanished places. But they affirm a sense of community, a love of the land and its bounty, and the age-old notion that breaking bread together creates a bond.
Interspersed with the recipes, heirloom and otherwise, are photographs illustrating town landmarks, shops and people, providing a glimpse, along with the taste, of long ago.
“It’s not just a recipe book per se, it’s a sharing of memories, a town history,†said Meg Dodds, who, with her husband Richard, edited the cookbook.
“We broadcast a call for recipes, and gathered recipes that people gave us,†said Dodds. “Our HLH curator Nancy Burstein gave us access to wonderful books in the stacks, recipe books from various churches, from schools. People really got into it. We set a deadline for March for collecting the recipes, and we pretty much worked day and night to be out by June.
“This was really a total town project,†said Dodds, expressing appreciation to Jack Elder and his employees at McClelland Press for their helpfulness.
“After they worked hard to get the book out for us, we went around to different merchants who would help us sell it afterwards.
“Everybody pitched in,†she said.
“It was really fun,†said Dodds. “To tell you the truth, we really felt part of the town.â€
“We have recipes from local restaurants. We have some recipes from (the former) Howard Johnson’s that serve many, many people. And we have some of Helen Aitken’s recipes from Williams College.â€
From Williams long-ago is a recipe from legendary chef Harry Hart, a chef at one of the college’s long-gone fraternities, whose recipes for the athletes’ training table are included.
“A photograph shows him wearing a chef’s hat and playing a wicked horn,†said Dodds.
“It’s very eclectic,†she said. We have some very old recipes, from way back, from recipe books dating from the 1800s.
“We have Lebanese recipes from Fannie Tash’s family (who ran a longtime neighborhood store on Water Street),†she said. Other recipes hail from Japan, and Central Europe.
Williams College’s Chapin Library let the compilers borrow a collection of cookbooks given by the mother of an alumnus.
Until Saturday, Sept. 15, cookbooks, and old cooking implements, are featured in an exhibit at the House of Local History in the public library building.
“But it wasn’t just recipes. We also had people, and they’d tell us a story about it, maybe say that a great-aunt gave it to them a long time ago. You found out so much about people.
“Sam Westcott’s daughter (Sue Westcott Landry) wrote about how excited she was as a child coming to visit her grandmother (Dorothy Westcott) at their egg farm (Willowbrook Farm) in South Williamstown,†said Dodds.
“There’s just a whole lot of people who shared things that touched their hearts,†said Dodds. That made it not a chore but a wonderful thing to do. It enables people to share their stories and recipes as you do with a big family.â€
The book is for sale for $12 at various locations in town.
Landry’s recollection forms the book’s introduction, and concludes:
“As a child, it seemed that every time we went to the farm Thanksgiving happened. Grandma was an excellent cook. We always had a feast. We ate at the large table covered with a pretty lace tablecloth, delicate china set the table with teacups and cloth napkins at each place setting. There was a cut glass pickle dish that sparkled, with its own special fork just for the pickles. Oh, it was all so elegantly fun!
“And then, Grandma would bring out her pies. Apple was my favorite and still is. To this day every time I bake an apple pie I think of Grandma. Hers were so good.
“I wanted to share these memories with you because Grandma made a big impression on me as a little girl. She was so wonderful, and I was so lucky because she was my Grandma.â€
Dorothy Westcott’s recipes in the book include her winter harvest casserole, her rhubarb cinnamon crisp, and rhubarb conserve.
The idea for the cookbook, said Dodds, was Ralph Herne’s, to have for the town’s upcoming 250th anniversary. And the book itself, she said, “Just sort of evolved.â€
Some of the stories accompanying heirloom recipes — more specifically, the modern-day submitter’s misadventures with them, e.g., goo and conflagration — are uproariously funny.
For instance, Henry W. Art submitted a recipe for Lizzie Wheldon’s Ginger Snaps, with the note that the recipe was found in an 1858-1878 account book kept by Samuel G. Whelden, who lived in the salt-box house that is currently 1385 Main St. (now owned by Phil and Suzy Smith). The book was found by Arthur E. Rosenburg in the 1930s when he purchased the house, and Mr. Rosenburg gave the book to Henry Art in 1974. The account book has many recipes written in pencil in the hand of Samuel Whelden’s young daughter Lizzie.
Art noted Lizzie’s recipe for ginger snaps: 11/2 cups molasses; 1/2 cup vegetable shortening; 1 tsp. ginger; 1 cup sugar; 1 tsp. baking soda.
And he wrote: “Pretty simple; so I thought it appropriate to bake a batch for the Moon barn raising at the Hopkins Memorial Forest in August, 1975. I followed the recipe exactly, and out of the oven came a vulcanized mass welded to the cookie sheet. Upon rereading the recipe, I realized that in the 19th century, any fool would have known to add flour to a cookie recipe, but it was too late to try again since the cookie sheets were ruined.â€
Art’s updated recipe adds 32/3 cups of flour.
The Rosenburg connection pervades Alice Bratcher’s entry as well, an entry which recounts not just a mess but a fire.
Bratcher write that her neighbor, Ella Rosenburg’s recipe for paper bag apple pie appeared in the cookbook called Home Cooking Secrets of South Williamstown by the Dorcas Society of the Second Congregational Church.
“I wanted to try Ella Rosenburg’s brown bag apple pie recipe before submitting it for the 250th anniversary cookbook, and I wanted to experience another of Ella’s delicious recipes. I followed the recipe exactly, and all went well. I had placed the pie in the brown bag and tucked in the end as directed. 15 minutes later my gas oven was belching smoke, and, upon checking inside, I found the whole bag on fire. We removed the bag from the oven and placed it on the top of the gas range. After covering the bag with three heavy towels to smother the fire and smothering some that had dropped on the rug, burning a few holes, the brown bag was no more. Somehow we saved the pie and baked it in the oven uncovered at a lower temperature of 350 degrees for one hour, and it proved to be delicious. How Ella would have laughed. She wouldn’t have been hesitant in telling me the error of my ways. We presume that the brown bag apple pie recipe was baked at another time, when you cooked on a cast iron stove and the oven and firebox were completely separate. Ella would love to have one of her recipes appear in the 250th edition, but I am not sure she would want to be notorious for the fire incident concerning her pie. She loved Williamstown and Sunnybrook Farm, where she lived on Cold Spring Road, and worked so hard for so many years. She was a fine cook, seamstress, quilt maker, and a wonderful neighbor and friend. She was a happy person and loved people and enjoyed having them visit her over a cup of tea. She loved to win and enjoyed playing bridge at the Harper Center. She died in 1988 at the age of 95.â€
Before listing the ingredients and instructions, Bratcher wrote, in large type: “Read Above Warning Before Brown Bagging This Pie.â€
Other recipes include Lemon Pie from the Ladies’ Aid Society of the Baptist Church, (never fails), submitted by Mrs. John Blake; green tomato mincemeat, from Maureen O’Mara; Howard Johnson’s Indian Pudding; Marion Goodale’s First Congregational Church Supper scalloped oysters, apple or peach rolle from Mary Lou Galusha; Bernice Nicklien’s sugar cookies, submitted by her granddaughter Tina Nicklien Bolner; Palatschinken (crepes) from Dagmar Bubriski, who recalls visits to Vienna and Hungary where they were a family tradition that she has continued; Peggy Dale’s oatmeal lace cookies, submitted by Janet Keep, and Helen Aitken’s grilled salmon with orange glaze.
Marion Alton’s recipe for buttercrunch candy is included, with this note, “As our children grew up, we sent each one out into the world with this recipe, the bottom of an old pressure cooker, and a marble slab.
“I keep buying them,†Alton said of the cookbooks. “ I’m sending them to children, to former neighbors. So I keep buying more cookbooks."
If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.
Your Comments
iBerkshires.com welcomes critical, respectful dialogue. Name-calling, personal attacks, libel, slander or foul language is not allowed. All comments are reviewed before posting and will be deleted or edited as necessary.
No Comments
Winter Storm Warning Issued for Berkshires
Another snowstorm is expected to move through the region overnight on Friday, bringing 5 to 8 inches of snow. This is updated from Thursday's winter weather advisory.
The National Weather Service in Albany, N.Y., has posted a winter storm warning for all of Berkshire County and parts of eastern New York State beginning Friday at 4 p.m. through Saturday at 1 p.m.
The region could see heavy to moderate snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour overnight, tapering off Saturday morning to flurries.
Drivers should exercise caution on Friday night and Saturday morning, as travel conditions may be hazardous.
Saturday night should be clear and calm, but warming temperatures means freezing rain Sunday night and rain through Monday with highs in the 40s. The forecast isn't much better through the week as temperatures dip back into the teens with New Year's Eve looking cloudy and frigid.
Samuel Currence served his country in the Air Force with distinction, professionalism and unparalleled humility from 1962 to 1985, retiring as a technical sergeant. click for more
Many homeowners are showing their holiday spirit by decorating their houses. We asked for submissions so those in the community can check out these fanciful lights and decor when they're out.
click for more
