Beth Allen - Good Housekeeping Great Home Cooking: 300 Traditional Recipes

CHAPTER 1
Dips, Dunks & Nibbles

CHAPTER 2
Soups & Sandwiches

CHAPTER 3
Best-Dressed Salads

CHAPTER 4
Eggs & Cheese-Plain & Fancy

CHAPTER 5
Chicken Every Sunday

CHAPTER 6
From the Butchers Block

CHAPTER 7
A Mess of Fish

CHAPTER 8
Pasta, Grains & Beans

CHAPTER 9
Eat Your Vegetables!

CHAPTER 10
From the Bread Basket

CHAPTER 11
Whats for Dessert Tonight?

CHAPTER 12
A Piece of Cake, A Slice of Pie

CHAPTER 13
Our Best Cookies & Candies

W e all love a great home-cooked mealespecially when it features familiar favorites like Moms meat loaf and apple pie. And those all-American foods weve grown up with are exactly what this book is all about.

Many of us prepare dishes that have been handed down from one generation to the next. My favorite is my grandmothers 3-Layer Devils Food Cake, something I still enjoy making when my brood gets together. Of course, Ive changed it a little, by icing it with Creamy Fudge Frosting instead of her Fluffy White Icing, but basically its still the same cake.

Here at Good Housekeeping, we take seriously our role in preserving our countrys food heritage and shaping new ways to cook traditional foods. Inside Good Housekeeping Great Home Cooking youll find a book that does all this and more.

First and foremost, its a recipe booka compilation of over 300 selections that have become a living part of our nations history. Youll find dishes dating back to the early days in America, when the Pilgrims refined Native American techniques for cooking plentiful foods such as corn, fish, and fowl. As our forefathers discovered local ingredients in various regions, down-home specialties became everyday favorites, and weve got them, toofrom New England chowder to Southern batter-fried chicken and San Francisco sourdough. Later, as immigrants began arriving, they taught us how to layer lasagna and stir-fry, so youll find recipes with an international flavor here as well.

But Good Housekeeping Great Home Cooking is much more than a delicious compilation of heirloom recipes with beautiful color photos. Each recipe comes with a story of how it became part of our heritage. For example, did you know that Caesar salad was created from ingredients that Caesar Cardini of Caesars Palace managed to scrape together when he ran low on food in his kitchen? All of these food gems make this book a cultural history to enjoy reading at your leisure.

Like many of our earlier cookbooks, Great Home Cooking was compiled by our talented Good Housekeeping Food Director, Susan Westmoreland, and her staff, who spend their days developing and triple-testing recipes to ensure that you have success with each one.

So from our kitchens to yours, enjoy sharing the greatest foods from around this great nation.

E LLEN L EVINE, Editor in Chief

N ative Americans used a variety of indigenous foods in their diet. Deer, bison, moose, small game, and flocks of migrating birds were plentiful. The oceans, rivers, and lakes were treasure troves of fish and shellfish. Wild and cultivated foods abounded, including beans, corn, squash, and wild rice, as well as blueberries, cranberries, currants, elderberries, strawberries, grapes, and plums.

The settlers who ventured to the New World in the 1600 and 1700s brought their cherished recipes and styles of cooking with them. The English settled in Jamestown and Plymouth, the Dutch gravitated to the mouth of the Hudson River, the Swedes traveled to the banks of the Delaware River, and the Germans settled in the Pennsylvania farmland.