Delaware River Gap National Recreation Area Culinary Treasures 25 Anniversary Edition 1965-1990 Compiled by Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area National Park Women’s Assn. River Road Bushkill, PA.
I think the “25th-anniversary edition” part of the title isn’t accurate, it doesn’t seem to be the anniversary of the first publication of the book but of the park itself.
The dedication shares that proceeds from the book went to the National Park Service Employee and Alumni Association Children’s Education Fund, the National Park Service Ranger Museum, and the celebration of the park’s silver anniversary.
Oddly this not the only Delaware Water Gap cookbook I have! I also have Peters Valley Cooks from Peters Valley School of Craft which is located in the park.
The park spans both New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I counted the Peters Valley book as a New Jersey book since that’s where is located but I’m going to tag both states for this one since it’s for the park as a whole.
I am a little puzzled by the name of the association that put out the book–were there national park women’s associations everywhere and this was just the Delaware Water Gap branch? It has “National Park” in the name but DWG is only a national recreational area (although there are talks that might change)–neither New Jersey nor Pennsylvania have any National Parks. I don’t see any women’s associations connected to the National Park Service currently. As always, if you are reading this and know more, leave a comment or get in touch!
Barbara Bush contributed a recipe for Mexican Mound–A Great Bush Favorite! She also contributed a recipe for All-American Clam Chowder. This leads me to wonder if someone on her staff really hated her or if she had more of a sense of humor than I would have expected.
The paper in this book is very thin–I can see through every page.
The contributors are all named. I had thought they might list their connection to the park but they didn’t.
The recipes are unusually short–the directions are quite scant even on recipes that don’t rely on convenience foods like cake mix but use a fair amount of raw ingredients and seasoning. There are a few more detailed recipes like the one above but that was unusual.
One recipe did sneak in a little history–
There were a few recipes that called for local fruit–Jane Ring’s Lowbush Cranberry Muffins and Ernestine and Bill Bradley (Senator of NJ)’s New Jersey Blueberry or Cranberry Muffins and regional dishes like Fasnachts (a type of doughnut) by Chris Nelson who added a memory of eating them before Lent.
Quite a few chili recipes.
