Lela Nargi - The Farmers Wife Cookie Cookbook: Over 250 Blue-ribbon Recipes!

OVER 250 BLUE-RIBBON RECIPES LELA NARGI, EDITOR Voyageur Press The Farmers Wife was a monthly magazine published in Minnesota between the years 1893 and 1939. In an era long before the Internet and high-speed travel connected us all, the magazine aimed to offer community among hardworking rural women by providing a forum for their questions and concerns, and assistance with the day-to-day goings-on about the farmeverything from raising chickens and slaughtering hogs, to managing scant funds and dressing the children, to keeping house and running the kitchen. The farmers wife was, most assuredly, a cookie maker. She made cookies when there was no real occasion at alljust to keep the cookie jar full or to pack a sweet treat for a school lunch boxand she made cookies, many many cookies, during the holiday season. She also made sweet finger foods aplenty for the formal and casual tea parties and coffee klatches she hosted in her living room and at her kitchen table. The scope of these treats extended beyond what we think of as specifically the cookie, and that is why recipes for gingerbread, bars and squares, and also fried goodies like doughnuts appear on these pages.

This book is organized by the intention of The Farmers Wife to offer sweet snacks to any and all comers throughout the dayrather than any strict adherence to a textbook definition of a cookie. Curiously, cookie making seems to have been such a mundane and informal activity for the farmers wife that she scarcely needed recipes to see her through. Oftentimes, she must just have whipped up a few batches from whatever ingredients she had in the cupboard, or baked or fried up leftover pastry scraps from some other kitchen undertaking. Cookie making was a relatively casual procedure, one not riddled with secretslike cake or pie baking, which required article upon article in the magazine over the years that expounded upon methods for achieving the moistest crumb, the smoothest frosting, the most delicate pie crust, the perfectly perky filling. So, cookie recipes from the magazine here are supplemented with adaptations of recipes from other collectionsmost notably from the excellent Pennsylvania Dutch Cook Book by Ruth Hutchison (for many farmers wives came from this tradition), and also several rural church and community compilations, which are similar in spirit to the magazine itself. These are mostly simple, no-nonsense, old-fashioned cookiessatisfying standbys of the country kitchen cookie jar, sweet but modest offerings to gladden the hearts of a hard-working family.

The recipes have been reprinted here as closely as possible to how they originally ran. Many were sent in by the magazines own readers, and they reflect highly individual methods of instruction and notions about what, in cookie making, could be considered common sense and therefore necessitating no instruction at all. In their language, they reflect the curious style and manners of their times, and herein lies a great deal of their charm, and the reason I have tried to alter them as little as possible. Anyone accustomed to reading cookbooks will feel right at home among the pages of this book. After all, the farmers wife was nothing if not matter-of-fact, and so were her recipes. Anyone new to cookbooks, and more particularly, historical cookbooks, is advised to follow the golden rule of the recipe: read it thoroughly, start to finish and preferably more than once, before embarking.

Make sure you understand the instructions and the order in which they are to be carried out; make sure you have all the ingredients at hand and assembled; and make sure to preheat your oven for a good 20 to 30 minutes before you are ready to bake. Wherever possible, I have attempted to abolish confusing, misleading, or laborious instructions. Ive also substituted modern equivalents for obsolete measurements like the gill (4 ounces) and the teacup (8 ounces). More than anything, this book wants to be used, not merely perused and admired. So, please use it! And know that as you do, you are baking up a bit of farmland history.

The farmers wife always sifted her flour once before measuring.

However, this instruction is now pretty much obsolete, since most contemporary flours are sifted before they are packed. When measuring, level off flour in the cup unless otherwise directed. Some recipes in this book approximate flour measurements or give a wide range (say, from 36 cups). The farmers wife was inclined to mix all other ingredients before adding enough flour to make a dough of the thickness she required. The amount of flour necessary can vary according to weather, altitude, and type of flour used, and a baker who can remain a little flexible about measurements in these instances will have greater success in the final result. 1 square Bakers chocolate refers to the 1-ounce variety. 1 square Bakers chocolate refers to the 1-ounce variety.

Rolled oats should be of the old-fashioned type, not the quick cooking. Measuring Equivalents: 1 pint = 2 c. 1 quart = 4 c. 1 pound yields: Sifted all-purpose flour4 c. Sifted cake flour4 c. Graham flour3 c.

Cornmeal3 c. Rolled oats5 c. White sugar2 c. Brown sugar2 c. Powdered sugar2 c. Milk2 c. Milk2 c.

Nutmeats4 c., chopped Dried fruit3 c. KEEP THE OLD STONE CROCK WHERE THE CHILDREN CAN REACH IT By Annette C. Dimock, April 1924 A cooky is jolly in its very name! I wonderis this new and changing generation getting away from the old-time sentiment clinging around the word cooky and the thought of Mothers and Grandmothers or Auntys or Big Sisters cooky jar? Have cooky sheets cut to fit the oven. Russia iron is the first choice, heavy tin the second. Such sheets are kept in better condition and give better results if instead of being greased they are rubbed very lightly with paraffin.

These are the easiest cookies in the farmers wifes arsenal.