Photography by Jaynell Keely

 

Looking for a new dish to add to your repertoire?

In Special Collections, you’ll find a robust collection of rare and specialty cookbooks, recipe cards and other food ephemera that can enhance your research or your next potluck meal.

Browse the recipes below for inspiration on what to add to your weekly menu—and stop by Special Collections to delve deeper into our extensive cookbook and food ephemera collection.

In transcribing the recipes below, all efforts were made to preserve original spelling and abbreviations.

 

A Taste of Delaware

Food brings people together. Family, friends and communities bond by sharing their traditions and recipes with one another. In Special Collections, you’ll find a number of cookbooks compiled by local Delaware companies, organizations, associations and restaurants all designed to bring Delawareans closer together through food and flavor.

 

Baked Pineapple Stuffing

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
5 slices of bread, cubed
1 (20 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Fold in bread and pineapple. Pour into greased 1 1/2-quart casserole. Bake, uncovered, for 1 hour. Note: Stuffing is especially good with ham. Yield: 6 servings.

Helen M. Bartels

From “Delaware’s Finest,” compiled by the Delaware chapter of the American Red Cross in 1990.

 

Flounder Fillets with Lime and Basil

1 lb. flounder fillets
2 Tbsp. margarine
1 tsp. basil
1 Tbsp. lime juice

In a medium-sized frying pan, melt margarine and stir in basil and lime juice. Coat fillets with this mixture and cook in the frying pan over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes per side until fish is opaque throughout. Serves 3.

Doris Hicks, University of Delaware, Lewes

From “Flavors of Cape Henlopen,” presented by Rehoboth Beach’s Village Improvement Association in 2001.

 

Sirloin Tips (Crock Pot Style)

2 lbs sirloin tips (cut into bite size pieces)
1 can golden mushroom soup
1 can French onion soup

In a crock pot, combine all ingredients and stir well. Cook on low heat setting for 6 to 8 hours or on high heat for 4 hours. Serve over rice or egg noodles. Very easy and good.

Gary Peebles

From “Herman’s Celebrating Forty Years of Service,” compiled by Herman’s Quality Meat Shoppe of Newark, Delaware, in 2007.

 

A Taste of Industry

In the 20th century, American food companies turned brand names into essential ingredients by creating recipes based around specific products to market their goods. While this type of advertising still exists today, the materials you’ll find in Special Collections will give you a glimpse into the food trends, marketing tactics and popular brands of yesteryear.

 

Caramel Crunch
All sweetness and lightness

1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 tablespoon corn syrup
1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
4 cups Rice or Corn Chex

1. Butter a cookie sheet or three 8 or 9-inch shallow pans.
2. Heat butter and syrup in large heavy skillet over low heat until butter is melted. Then stir until blended.
3. Add sugar. Stir until smooth. Continue heating slowly without stirring until mixture is all foam and twice the original volume. From this point, heat for 2 more minutes.
4. Then while still over heat, add the Chex all at once. Stir until each Chex is coated.
5. Pour onto buttered cookie sheet. Spread over entire sheet. Mixture will be in a lacy pattern.
6. When cool, break into bite-sized pieces.
Yield: Approximately 5 cups.

From Ralston Purina Company’s “Album of Popular Snacks,” undated, in the Lucie Jenkins Johnson Culinary Ephemera Collection

 

Cream of Potato Soup

8 medium-sized potatoes
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 cup Carnation Milk, undiluted
Salt and pepper to taste
Chopped parsley

Peel and dice potatoes, cook until tender in enough salted water to cover. Drain, reserving 4 cups of the liquid. Force potatoes through ricer or sieve. Combine with potato water. Add egg and Carnation Milk, beating well. Season to taste. Heat thoroughly, stirring constantly. Serve at once, garnished with chopped parsley. Serves 6.

From Carnation Company’s “The Velvet Blend Book: Milk-Rich Carnation Recipes,” undated, in the Lucie Jenkins Johnson Culinary Ephemera Collection

 

Banana Sandwich

Cut the bananas into long thin strips, sprinkle with lemon juice or salt water. Place on thinly sliced bread and spread with mayonnaise. Chopped almonds, chopped pecans or pimento cut into tiny pieces add an attractive flavor and nutritive value to this delicious sandwich for the children’s luncheon.

From Banana Distributing Company’s “Everyday Banana Recipes,” 1927, in the Lucie Jenkins Johnson Culinary Ephemera Collection

 

A Taste of History

Whether the paper is riddled with food stains or perfectly preserved, there is something undeniably personal about a recipe someone wrote out by hand. In Special Collections, you’ll find a variety of 19th and 20th century cookbooks filled with handwritten recipes, newspaper clippings and other ephemera that provide true snapshots of the time and plenty of inspiration for your next kitchen adventure—even if the recipes are more like ingredient lists than instructions.

 

Hard Gingerbread

4 tablespoon-fulls of pork drippings
4 of boiling water
Fill the cup with molasses
1 teaspoonfull of saleratus*
1 of ginger
1/2 of cream tartar

*Editor’s Note: Saleratus, similar to baking soda, was a chemical leavener.

From a handwritten recipe within the unbound “Manuscript recipes,” approximately 1830s.

 

Doughnuts

1 pint of sweet milk
1/2 pint of yeast
1 tea cup of lard and butter mixed together
2 tea cups of sugar
3 eggs
Cinnamon and nutmeg, little of each

Mix in the morning, fry in the afternoon

From Mrs Curtis

From a handwritten recipe within the compiled manuscript recipe book “Recipes for cake, pies, pudding,” approximately 1867-1888.

 

Minced Pies

2 pound of tongue
2 pound of beef sewit*
2 pound of apple
3 pound of currants
3 ounces of spice
3 pints of wine and one of rose water
2/2 sugar

*Editor’s Note: This is likely a former spelling or misspelling of beef suet, a type of fat used in pastry-making and deep frying.

From a handwritten recipe sewn in the front of “The Frugal Housewife: Dedicated to Those Who Are Not Ashamed of Economy,” 1831, by Lydia Maria Child.

 

Still Hungry?

In addition to the extensive collection of cookbooks and recipes in Special Collections, there are thousands of cookbooks that you can check out from our circulating collection as well as popular cookbooks in e-book format. And if you’re in the mood for even more food, browse the online exhibition Jell-O: America’s Most Famous Dessert for a little something sweet.