Christmas Is…Good Things to Eat A collection of recipes compiled by TORCH Business and Professional Woman’s Club, Danville, Virginia (1976 dated from reference to the bicentennial)
This is a slim cookbook but they fit a lot of recipes on each page. I’m actually not a huge Christmas person but I love single subject cookbooks. This one has a lot of the ususual cookie, appetizer and main dish recipes but also some recipes with descriptions of how to make them even more festive by arranging the ingredients in the shape of a wreath (Elizabeth Hardy’s Christmas Snack Wreath) and the classic cornflake and marshmallow wreath cookies (Ruth Scott’s Christmas Wreath).
Some real classics I don’t see a lot like Anne Branham’s Old-Time Popcorn Balls and Dorothy Walker’s Cranberry Punch were included.
There were some “Last Minute Hostess Gifts” like Letty Shultz’s Potpourri Relish with cauliflower, pimento, olives and celery and a scary “recipe” for “Dancing Mothballs” by Marguerite Motley which was a “pretty–conversation piece not to eat” and involves a brandy snifter, mothballs and vinegar. I truly can’t imagine that.
There were a few historical recipes from the Home Comfort Range Cook Book of 1887 for things like muffins and Letty Shultz contributed a recipe for Mary Ball Washington’s Gingerbread which she says is perfect for the bicentennial (which helped me date the book) and says the recipe was found in a “old worn cookery book” and that “Many descendants of Mary Washington (mother to the president) have this recipe.”. There was also a reference to LBJ which also helped set the date for the book. A lot of these community cookbooks, like this one, have a look thanks to the text and stock illustrations that make them look older than their are so it’s nice to have a clue when they aren’t explicitly dated.
There is even a recipe for Snow Cream (no contributor listed) that calls for SNOW!