Marilynn Brass - Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters: More than 100 Years of Recipes Discovered from Family Cookbooks, Original Journals, Scraps of Paper, and Grandmother?s Kitchen

Marilynn Brass and Sheila Brass are home cooks with more than 119 years of experience between them. They have appeared in their own television cooking specials including The Brass Sisters Holiday on the Cooking Channel and The Brass Sisters: Queens of Comfort Food on WGBH, the PBS affiliate in Boston. They have also been guests on the Food Network's Bobby Flay's Throwdown and on PBS's Simply Ming, hosted by Tsai Ming. They have also made appearances on Antiques Roadshow FYI. Heirloom Baking was nominated for the James Beard Foundation Award in the category of "Baking and Dessert." They are the authors of Heirloom Cooking with the Brass Sisters, also published by Black Dog & Leventhal (2008).

www.thebrasssisters.com

Heirloom Baking

with the

Brass Sisters

More than 100 Years of Recipes Discovered from Family Cookbooks, Original Journals, Scraps of Paper, and Grandmother's Kitchen

Marilyn Brass & Sheila Brass

Photographs by Andy Ryan

Copyright 2006 Marilynn Brass and Sheila Brass

Photographs copyright 2006 Andy Ryan

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Published by Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers

151 W. 19th Street New York, NY 10011

Distributed by Workman Publishing Company

225 Varick Street New York, NY 10014

Cover by Susi Oberhelman

Photographs by Andy Ryan

Food styling by Marilynn Brass and Sheila Brass

eISBN: 9781603763639

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file.

Contributors to Heirloom Baking

Patti Angelina, Mrs. Charles Barker, Bertha Bohlman, Dorothy Katziff Brass, Harry Brass, Mary Brinkman, Cynthia Broner, Reverend Brown, Charlotte Casuto, Mrs. Chubb, Libby Cockrey, Donna, Mrs. William Eaton, Lannie Edmondson, Evalyn, Mrs. Fleisher, Marion Freeman, Mrs. Hall, Helen, Mattie James, Elinor Inman Jennings, Mrs. Justo, Ida Tucker Katziff, Mrs. Paul Knight, Grete Leonard, Virginia P. Lima, Melania Marasi, Marta, Winnie McCarthy, Mrs. Moore, Mary Moretti, Nell, Liz ONeill, Mrs. Orcott, Lotty Peck, Pennys Cousin Pearl, Esther Pullman, Elva Ross, Bessie Rothblott, Miss Emma Smith, James Tulsa Stuart, Ellen Sullivan, Mrs. Tate, The Church Lady, The Radio Lady, Mary Williams, Mrs. Carl Winchenbach, Louise Zimmerman

FABRIC CREDITS : : Joan Kessler for Concord Fabrics Inc. Crafted with Pride in U.S.A.; 52-53: Amy Butler for Free Spirit; 76-77: Simply Irresistible by Robyn Pandolph SSI; 124-125: Cranston Print Works; 148-149: The Blended Collection IV by Sharon Yenter for In the Beginning Fabrics 2005; 170-171: Patterns of History, A Kansas City Star Collection, Alices Leafy Bower 1930-1940; 194-195: Aunt Grace Scrap Bag 2004, from the collection of Judie Rothermet for Marcus Brothers Textiles, Inc.; 262-263: V.I.P by Cranston Cranston Print Works

T O OUR MOTHER, D OROTHY K ATZIFF B RASS , AND OUR AUNT , I DA T UCKER K ATZIFF , WITH LOVE

We are two roundish bespectacled women in our sixties who have a combined total of 110 years home-baking experience. Sheila was 11 years old when she baked her first cake in the kitchen where we grew up, in Winthrop, Massachusetts. Marilynns first baking attempt was a pineapple coconut cake, although she does have memories of replicating the filled cookies and Welsh rarebit she learned how to make in her seventh-grade cooking class.

Both of us have always felt comfortable in the kitchen. We learned the basics of baking from our mother, who was a talented home cook and baker. When we could barely reach the kitchen table, we were already turning scraps of dough into miniature braided challah loaves and turnovers, lovingly brushed with an egg glaze to make them shiny.

We remember the smell of sour cream coffee cakes and yeast breads baking in the cast iron and enamel stove in our kitchen. We still cherish the good times we had with our mother when she patiently instructed us, transferring her love of family and the art of baking to her two young daughters. The time she invested in us has made us who we are. We love being in the kitchen; it is there that we feel the most happy and creative and adventuresome.

Some of our fondest memories are of summer Fridays spent with Mama, baking, learning, and nibbling our creations. Music and food went together in our family. With the cooking underway and the aroma of chicken soup and parsnips wafting through the house, Mama often took a break by sitting down at the piano to play our favorite songs. Almost sixty years later, we still remember what it was like to lie on the oilcloth-covered glider on the back porch, reading and eating an egg salad sandwich, watching our mother through the window as she put together one of her blueberry pies or frosted her chocolate velvet cake.

Sheila and Marilynn, Winthrop Beach, 1944, and today

In time, we began to collect cooking magazines and cookbooks of our own. First, it was Gourmet, the whole run, lovingly gathered. Later, it was the Foods of the World series published by Time-Life. In the late 1960s, both of us collected all twelve volumes of the Womans Day Encyclopedia of Cooking.

More than thirty years ago we discovered manuscript cookbookscollections of personal recipes compiled by home cooks. Handwritten notes on crumbling scraps of paper or the pages of old, well-worn cookbooks led us to lost family recipes. Recipe collections that survived were typically gathered together in small bundles, stitched, tied, stapled, or boxed, and handed down to the next generation. These forgotten bundles of culinary history turn up at yard sales and flea markets, in used bookstores, and on the pantry shelves of friends.

Over the years, we have acquired more than eighty-five such collections of living recipes. From them, we selected 150 recipes of interest, researched them, and tested them in our own kitchens. Compiling and writing Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters has been a labor of love. We are dedicated to recovering, updating, andabove all enjoying the best home baking from Americas past. By presenting old recipes simply and with contemporary flair, we are able to help a new generation of cooks (and their families) discover and enjoy the special tastes of the culturally diverse American kitchen. And where better to start than with everyones favorite part of a mealthe dessert!

You may recognize some of these recipes as similar to ones prepared by your own mothers, grandmothers, and aunts. Women all over the United States and Canada shared many of them. Several of the recipes reflect African-American, Hispanic, Armenian, Italian, Asian, Hungarian, and Austrian traditions. You will notice a strong representation of English, Scottish, and Irish recipes because many of the manuscript cookbooks weve baked from were written by women from New England.

We dont know when we became known as the Brass sisters. Maybe, as we grew older, it became more evident that we look very much alike. It is unusual for a day to go by without someone using the T word. Although we are not twins, we do share a similarity of tastes, both culinary and personal. We both love holidays, decorating our apartments with culinary antiques, reading mysteries, and planning parties. Some of our happiest times are spent shopping for food. Marilynn has been known to get excited over a beautiful bunch of radishes, while Sheila is dedicated to discovering the best new bakeries.