As we move into the new year, I’m shifting from making 1922 recipes to making 1923 recipes. I’m always re-energized each January when I have a whole new set of cookbooks and magazines to search through to find recipes to make for this blog. I recently purchased several 1923 cookbooks on eBay. Here are a few of the books that I’ll be pulling recipes from this year.
The Order of the Eastern Star Relief Fund Cook Book was “compiled and arranged by Minnie Grace Kenyon, Past Grand Matron,Michigan Grand Chapter, Order of the Easter Star.” The cookbook does not mention the purpose of the relief fund, so I don’t know why they were raising money by publishing a cookbook.
The General Welfare Guild Cook Book was compiled by a special committee of the General Welfare Guild of the Beaver Valley General Hospital, New Brighton, Pennsylvania. The preface to the book says:
This organizations is an important auxiliary to the Hospital, having furnished and now maintaining:
- The Children’s Ward,.
- The Woman’s Surgical Ward,
- The Maternity Ward,
as well as contributing liberally to many other charities.
A Hundred Years Ago 
I guess people really saved old cookbooks. Maybe my kids will have my 1969 red Betty Crocker cookbook when it turns 100. Many young women in my age group received it when they left home.
I also still have my old red loose-leaf Betty Crocker cookbook. It’s the main cookbook that I I’ve used over the years. It’s in terrible condition, and very worn with many of the page holes torn out. It’s anyone’s guess whether anyone will want it.
I’ll bet someone will in the future.
It will be a most interesting recipe year ahead my friend! The war was long over (although much of Europe was still in distress and rebuilding), the Spanish flu a memory, and the prosperity of the Roaring 20s vibrant after so much misery.
I agree – It will be an interesting recipe year. You nicely laid out the context of the year.
I forgot to mention Prohibition! Not that it lessened how much people drank, they just learned to hide it!
That’s definitely a big part of the 1923 context. This is the era of flappers, speakeasies, and new perspectives on the role of women.
It’s going to be a fun year Sheryl!
An interesting year ahead is promised!
I’m looking forward to trying some of the recipes. I already have a list of ones that I want to make.
Hooray!
I can’t wait to see what’s inside these cookbooks!
You’ll see over the next few months. 🙂
Awesome! Great way to share and enjoy recipes, by switching the cookbooks with the years.
I look forward to the delicious and fun and sometimes curious recipes and snippets from your 1923 cookbooks. 🙂
The first few years that I did hundred-year-old recipes, I didn’t always use recipes from exactly a hundred years previously. Sometimes I just make recipes that were “about” a hundred years old. But someone commented on the discrepancy between the blog title and what I was doing – and I decided to try to just do recipes that were exactly a hundred years old. And, I’ve found it to be more enjoyable to make the recipes when I have the added challenge of only making ones that are exactly a hundred years old.
Happy New Year Sheryl, I can feel your excitement 🙂 I love the cover of the first book (Bethany Shrine Patrol)—such elegant graphics! The Order of the Eastern Star sounds like an Odd Fellows-type group (for women?) Which always seemed mysterious to me, growing up and hearing about these fellowships. I grew up outside Harrisburg, PA went to the Zembo Shrine Circus (the fez!), so all this feels oddly (no pun intended) familiar! Will be curious to see what you turn up this year 🙂
I live about two blocks from the Zembo. 🙂 OES is part of the masonic stuff.
Wow! It’s still there!? I am doing my family tree and found an Odd Fellows certificate for a great-great uncle or someone. Thanks for validating my weird childhood! I remember they would drag in some Western TV star who would ride around the ring at the circus. Sometimes a little tipsy 🙂 Grumbling at his agent no doubt.
heh. Yep, it’s still here and they still have a circus come in. What’s kind of funny is the Zembo Mosque is right where it was, and right across the street is a real mosque in the what was the church.
There are a lot of old Oddfellows halls in PA, often identified by having OOF somewhere in the masonry of the building.
Thanks for sharing – It’s amazing that it’s still there and that the circus still comes. I haven’t been to a circus in years.
Your comment made me look more carefully at the cover of the Bethany Shrine Patrol cookbook. You’re right; it’s elegent is a very understated kind of way. Like you, I don’t know much about the Off Fellows-type organizations – though always heard of them when growing up in PA.