Doorway to Good Eating

Doorway to Good Eating compiled by Elkhart General Hospital Auxiliary 1979

The book opens with a little history of the Auxiliary dating back to twenty-five women in 1951. There is also a Junior Auxiliary for teenaged girls and a group for boys called Red Coats. They seem to do everything outside of medical care at the hospital from running the gift shop to organizing the annual ball to baby photos. This really made me think about the unpaid labor that seems to have been (and still is at many) the norm at hospitals. The proceeds from the book went to help fund these efforts.

There is a fair amount of generic stock filler in the beginning of the book–diets (not even going to touch that! I don’t think you could eat any recipe in any cookbook and work those), conversion charts and even some Bible chart.

The recipes are all credited to their contributor but their connection to the hospital or the Auxiliary is unlisted. Some recipes like Sue Jellison’s “No Peek” Beef Stew have some fun details–you put it in the oven and then “don’t peek for 4 to 4 1/2 hrs”. Georgene Nelson’s Beef Burgundy has you use a soup can to measure out the wine (although the recipe does not call for soup).

The recipes lean to the basic side but the directions are pretty solid and helpful and include warnings like “DO NOT precook ingredients” in Ruth Cobb’s Easy Casserole. I wish some did have more a of a clue; how did Calico Ham get its name, Katherine McDonough?

There are some cute illustrations on the section sheets that initially I thought were unique but I found them in another 1979 Indiana cookbook so they must just be from the publisher.

I adapted Dorothy Brown’s Sunny Graham Chewies and Lucille Kramer’s Broccoli Casserole from this book.