The Cook’s Book 3 complied by the Miriam Lodge. Undated but includes a calendar page featuring the years 1987, 1988 and 1989 so most likely published in 1987.
The Miriam Lodge, K.S.B. was founded 1873 in Baltimore, Maryland, and is still in existence today. There is a nice timeline on their website that outlines their long history of charitable giving.
The book is 159 pages long with a wide variety of recipes by named named contributors with an emphasis on main dishes and including traditional and Passover recipes section. Stock photography on section dividers.
While the Miriam Lodge is a Jewish women’s organization, as I’ve observed in other local Jewish community cookbooks, the recipes are not kosher and include dishes like “shrimp and crab dip”. I noticed this when working on the Festive Maryland book. It is interesting because I have noted that Jewish cookbooks from other regions typically are kosher or at the very least “kosher friendly”. I’m not sure why that is largely not true here in Baltimore. I do know we have had a Jewish community here for a very long time (1657!) so assimilation happens, in the 1840s a Reform congregation (Reform is generally speaking the most liberal movement in Judaism) started, crab and oysters are very popular and readily available here and many Jewish people do not keep kosher. It’s just striking that even fairly old Maryland books from the late 1800s-1930s women who are raising money for Jewish people, for Jewish schools as members in Jewish organizations and synagogues, are comfortable contributing recipes and putting their names on these recipes that many members of their greater community would not eat. That is, of course, totally fine but it is interesting to see because it is different that what I see in other communities and in national publications.
Or could it be as simple as the collective love of Old Bay and therefore crabs? After all, Gustav Brunn, creator of Old Bay, was a post-Kristallnacht refugee in Baltimore.
I’d love to know more if anyone has any insight!