The Flavor of Chester County complied by Chester County Junior Women’s Clubs First edition 1972, Revised edition 1975 (my copy)
Nancy Thompson illustrated historical scenes and sketches of Chester County which appear randomly throughout the book along with a brief history of the location. Chester County was one of the three original Pennsylvania counties created by William Penn in 1682.
There are a few historical tips in the book unrelated to food like a 1818 cure for warts–just rub them in tobacco juice and chalk! (Don’t do this.) and some historical food like “a cheap seed cake”.
The recipes include some headnotes which is unusual in community cookbooks. Sue Yahraes assures us that her Ham and Apple Spread is “chunky and delicious” and Betsy Bloomquist’s Crescent Roll-ups are “just plain good”. I love headnotes–writing them, reading them–so this was fun to see. I think they get left out in a lot of community cookbooks due to space concerns but even a line or two is helpful and interesting. I want to know that Ruth Lathrop’s Yummy Yellow Cake is “so light–it rises when all else has failed” or this fact about Ann Tumolo’s Mom’s Walnut Cake “this is the cake that will beat any his mother made!!!”.
The section dividers are also illustrated. They really did put a lot of effort into this book. There are a lot of different named contributors (and a handful of unnamed), histories, tips, and a lot of varied recipes.
There are a fair number of Italian recipes in the book, Chester County is home to a large number of Italian immigrants and descendants of those immigrants, including Alice D’Amico’s “real Italian” Pizelle.
There is a full chapter of mushroom recipes. Kennett Square in Chester County is known as the mushroom capital of the United States.