Blast from the Past
Some of Pat Klos’ cookbook collection at her Reno home. Photo by Andy Barron
What vintage cookbooks tell us about Northern Nevada’s kitchens.
The bag of vintage cookbooks sat on my office shelf for a year. Pat Ferraro Klos, local historian, author, and longtime friend, gave it to me. She was cleaning out her own shelves and thought the contents might be useful to me in my ongoing search for local food history.
I realized I had a gold mine only steps away from my computer. What made the contents of the bag special was that they all are of the homegrown variety: They were compiled from entries submitted by nonprofessional cooks who were local or regional, making the collections a colorful record of what was happening in this area’s kitchens. They were mostly from the 1960s through 1980s. Some were typed and mimeographed (a common form of copying before 1970), some professionally printed. They varied considerably in sophistication, but a certain charm was present in all.
Klos didn’t intentionally start her collection; it grew, more or less, by accident. Her first cookbook was Reno Also Cooks, a hefty tome from 1959 by the Women’s League of Washoe Medical Center. It was given to her as a “kitchen bridal shower” gift in June 1960. After the first acquisition, she picked up others at yard and book sales. She appreciated that they were well loved, often showing wear and tear (and a splatter or two). All volumes were filled with the imprints and idiosyncrasies of the participating cooks. They gave everybody a moment of fame and, to some extent, a chance for their legacies to live on.
I dove deeply into the recipes, observing how community-driven cookbooks reflect a full range of tastes and experiences. They reveal a sense of culinary adventure and the evolution of gastronomic trends. As described in 1972’s Cooking After Five, produced by the staff at the University of Nevada, Reno Library, “This cookbook was put together for fun … [W]e don’t pretend to be great cooks, just busy ones.” The recipes weren’t scientifically tested or timed, adding to the challenges of using any of the recipes.
Deep Roots
The books were an interesting group, with at least three of them reaching into the past. The cover of Cook with Nevada State Pharmaceutical Association Auxiliary, from 1976, is enhanced by a drawing of a Paiute woman at a grinding stone, with the tagline, “Original Nevada Pharmacist 1776.” The art was contributed by well-known Nevada artist and teacher Tom Summers. The Twentieth Century Club’s Cook Book: a Salute to Nevada’s Centennial Year describes a banquet held in 1894 for the “Press convention in Reno.” Members of the club prepared a feast for 100 conventioneers that served Blue Point oysters, “chicken en magnaise,” roast turkey, assorted cakes, ice cream — and, of course, pickles and olives. Their records indicate that dinner cost a dollar and no wine would be served.
Klos’ collection also includes a reprint of the Nevada Cook Book, originally published in 1887. The recipes were gathered by the Woman’s Art and Industrial Association in Carson City. Recipes weren’t formatted the way we now expect, but rather in narrative form that wove ingredient listings into descriptions of preparation. It’s entertaining reading, with an entire section dedicated to remedies for whatever ails you. One treatment suggests mixing horseradish with vinegar and applying it externally for neuralgia. Or perhaps you need to eliminate ants, or cure cancer, or remove machine grease? It’s all here, along with a caveat in the reprinted version: “Although we heartily savor the culinary aspects of this book, we do not endorse the medical remedies, cure-alls and panaceas.”
Before Women’s Liberation
Most of the recipe donors were women, and many books are filled with women’s wisdom of the period, such as in What’s Cookin’ in Fallon, Nevada, produced by St. Patrick’s Social Club. The preface includes Louisa Moiola’s “recipe for a happy home”:
One cup of honesty
One cup of congeniality
2 cups of plenty
3 cups of respect
Season with fruit of the spirit and a dash of unselfishness and a pinch of individuality. Lighten with leaven of constancy. Bake in a quick oven.
In keeping with the midcentury times, many contributors are listed only as “Mrs. So-and-So.” The books are peppered with recipes from distinguished people. Flip through the pages and you find a who’s who of well-known area families, such as Laxalt, Bible, Caples, Carano, Mapes, Hawkins, Francovich, and more. In an exception to most publications, Reno Also Cooks contains a section called “Our Men Cook Too,” with recipes ranging from “borsch” (sic) to “damn meat balls” to fillet of sole merguez (merguez being a North African sausage). Many of the men who offered recipes were doctors at the medical center, although you’ll find contributions from other notables of that era, including local architect David Vhay, Holiday Hotel developer Norman Biltz, and renowned artist Craig Sheppard.
In good Nevada fashion, wild game had a place in these titles. Reno Also Cooks features a section dedicated to the preparation of game, with an introductory page recommending, “All game should be cooked in butter to preserve the delicate game flavor.” The reader also is cautioned against overseasoning, which would mask the distinctive flavor of each meat. A wild fowl stuffing and a game sauce made with currant jelly, Worcestershire sauce, lemon, and mustard are included to complement game dishes. While there are recipes for antelope and venison, wild birds dominate. Pheasant, dove, quail, sage hen, wild hen, wild goose, chukar, and partridge are thoroughly covered.
It must have been customary for cookbook editors to contact famous people, particularly politicians and their wives. Carolyn O’Callaghan, wife of then-Governor Mike O’Callaghan, contributed a recipe for coq au vin. American first ladies were well represented. Betty Ford shared her ruby red grapefruit chicken. Rosalyn Carter added flank steak marinated in soy sauce and white wine. Barbara Bush offered Mexican mound, which she described as a “great Bush favorite, easy to make and loved by all who love Mexican food.” Jackie Kennedy submitted a recipe for potatoes Suzette, although it’s hard to imagine her preparing this in the White House kitchen. Cooking the Democratic Way, created in 1978 by the Democratic Party of Washoe County, represents the most partisan array of notables, with photos reaching back to Eleanor Roosevelt and advancing to politicians in the Nevada Senate, Assembly, and U.S. Congress. A foreword mentions, “Any registered Democrat may reproduce any recipe in this book — provided that the recipe is first tested.” The book is “dedicated to politicians everywhere,” apparently in recognition of how hard it is to govern, regardless of party affiliation.
Ingredients Evolve Over Time
Much as I tried to avoid it, I cringed at many of the dishes described in the older volumes. Canned mushrooms figured way too prominently. In 1954, when Lipton introduced its onion soup mix, it became common for home cooks to rip open packets and call them gourmet sauce. Knorr’s leek soup mix attempted to compete with Lipton. Bisquick was widely included. Campbell’s cornered the market in the 1950s, with its canned soups that showed up in every imaginable casserole, far beyond the scope of tuna or green bean. Lard, oleo, and Crisco commonly were used, with butter or olive oil appearing less often. It was interesting to see dishes relegated to the “luncheon” category, although I enjoyed Denise Jenece Howard’s comment on Scotch eggs: “These are great for lunches, especially when packed in your pocket while on horseback.”
Sadly, the tradition of making homemade pickles mostly has waned. The old cookbooks revealed so many recipes for preserved foods that they often deserved their own section. You might find pickled tongue, pickled turnips, or pickled peaches. The Nevada State Museum Cook Book features piccalilli, green tomato chutney, and sweet zucchini pickles for a start. Pickle recipes phased out over time, but Country Cookbook, a relatively new entry from 1989 by the Nevada Farm Bureau Women, begins with a section on pickles and relishes, still showing the deep roots of the rural cooks. Take your pick of chow chow, green tomato relish, or classics such as bread-and-butter pickles.
It wouldn’t be midcentury Nevada (or anywhere in the United States, really) without the ubiquitous Jell-O. This kitchen staple also affected culinary décor since it was necessary to collect the rings and molds used to contain the wiggly creations. This period was the heyday of tinned mandarin oranges, making any salad more colorful. Reno Also Cooks exhibits a wide range of “jello” (the spellings vary widely) dishes, including cantaloupe, pineapple, cucumber, beet, molded tuna fish, and more. The more layers of Jello-O and ingredients, the more impressive the dish when served. Harkening back to Victorian times when aspics were common, unflavored gelatin appears in dishes such as mayonnaise rings and salmon mold piquante. What’s Cookin’ in Fallon may include the most colorfully named gelatin salad of all: yum yum salad, with its crushed pineapple, green pepper, and grated American cheese.
What about the drinks that were common during these times?The folks who contributed to The OLS Parish Potpourri obviously enjoyed life, since this is one of the few volumes that includes alcoholic drinks. Recipes include Champagne punch, peach fuzz, kick-a-poo party punch, gin fizzer, and sangria. The books also reflect the midcentury trend of grabbing a bottle of vodka and doctoring it in an attempt to imitate expensive liqueurs, with the pharmaceutical cookbook offering its version of “kahlua.” The ultimate libation might be “green death” from Cooking the Democratic Way, which describes throwing a can of frozen lime juice into a blender with an unspecified quantity of vodka.
Always Time for Treats
Carbs in every form have probably best stood the test of time. From-scratch pudding recipes were common. Pies were proof of the homemaker’s skills. Perusing the pages, I could practically smell the breads, biscuits, and rolls coming from the oven. The term “gluten-free” hadn’t entered the lexicon. The extensive lists of Parker House rolls, Vienna rolls, and walnut brown bread will make readers salivate.
The classic cakes all make appearances: cheese, angel food, carrot, oatmeal, gingerbread, fruitcake, and honey. Some old-fashioned recipes have faded into history, such as the varied versions of prune cake or royal red rhubarb cake, which involves tossing in a package of strawberry Jell-O for good measure. Coca-Cola Cake and 7-Up cakes were clearly on trend in midcentury America. It’s easy to giggle at colorful cake names, ranging from wacky cake to Egyptian cake, a dropped cake (in which you’re actually instructed to drop the cake, once out of the oven, three times from knee height), and a surprise cake (which includes a can of tomato sauce). Boxed cake mixes started to overtake homemade cakes in the 1950s. When cake mix sales dipped a few years later, the clever people at Pillsbury, Betty Crocker, and Duncan Hines formulated recipes as “almost homemade,” which required the home baker to add shelf ingredients to the mixes. The trend took over, and Country Cookbook, for example, offers a recipe for turtle cake, which starts with a German chocolate cake mix and adds loads of caramels, sweetened condensed milk, and frosting.
Our Communities Diversify
International dishes always had a place in these books. Communities with a large local presence, such as the Basque people, figured prominently. In Cooking the Democratic Way, there’s a lovely quote from Robert Laxalt’s Sweet Promised Land about Nevada bread: “My father set about getting dinner — potatoes and lamb chops fried in the Dutch oven. Spreading a square of clean canvas on the ground, he … broke out a huge new loaf of sourdough bread, scratching the sign of the cross on the back with a knife before he cut the first slice.” This excerpt was followed by Anita Mitchell’s recipe for sheepherders bread, which won the bread-baking championship at the 1975 National Basque Festival and was published in 1976 in Sunset magazine.
The Italian community also played a significant role in cookbooks of the time, providing recipes for lasagnas, stuffed zucchini, polenta, cioppino, frittelle di semolino (cream of wheat fritters), and panettone. Klos contributed a recipe for veal scallopini. Appreciation of Latin American foods was demonstrated early, with corn breads, chili rellenos, tamale loaves, and enchiladas leading the pack (in number, if not authenticity). Cooking After Five evencontains an index with a section called “Mexican Dishes.” The next time you’re enjoying a margarita, you can debate whether the ever-popular seven-layer taco dip is a Mexican standard (you win if you say it’s Tex-Mex).
Over time, menus were influenced by otherethnic dishes. The field began to include paella Valenciana, chicken curry Bombay, gazpacho, cheese blintzes, Scandinavian lutefisk, and Slavic casserole. Ceviche included a message on how to pronounce it (sa–vee–chay). Maybe fried wontons Korean-style are more to your taste? How about Northern European lobscouse, Hungarian-style veal balls or goulash, or bouillabaisse? Stroganoff, including one made with liver, was a go-to party dish during this period.
Fresh ingredients finally became more available, and cream, white wine, herbs, and fresh mushrooms began to appear in local kitchens. One of the funniest books I encountered is singularly focused. Klos was teaching in Yerington when Lyon County’s Favorite Zucchini Recipes was printed by the county’s cooperative extension service. To commemorate its publication, the school custodian put a zucchini in each of the teachers’ mailboxes. Humor is sprinkled liberally throughout. Take, for example, Judy Kozinski’s recipe for “A Polish/Jewish appetizer … Or is it Chinese?” which is otherwise known as rumaki, a popular midcentury appetizer. The longest recipe name is “My grandmother’s meringues, or as they are called in Kentucky, egg kisses.”
So what’s on your bookshelf? If you’re like most people these days, you’re more likely to head online for cooking ideas than to your collection of books. But it can be interesting to see how these volumes reflect your life and your changing interests and affiliations over time. Maybe you take to heart the French poet Charles Baudelaire’s words: “No restaurants. The means of consoling oneself: reading cookbooks.”
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