Yesterday's recipes have a lot to offer today's cooks. That's what Debbie Miller and Rae Katherine Eighmey found as they immersed themselves in 1950s cookbooks to research and write "Potluck Paradise" (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 168 pages, $16.95), a finalist for the Minnesota Book Awards.
Many of the recipes in their book can cut meal costs, either by making food from scratch or using some readily available products.
"These recipes are as useful today as they ever were, "said Eighmey. "We all need to economize and know we're getting the most we can out of our food dollars."
The recipes, based on those in church and community cookbooks produced throughout the Midwest, reflect many regional similarities. Paging through the cookbook will be a walk down memory lane and into church basements for those who grew up in the '50s.
"There were an awful lot of recipes for dream bars and snickerdoodles [cinnamon-spiced cookies]," Miller said with a chuckle. It was her own first encounter with snickerdoodles during elementary school that set her off on a lifelong baking habit and led her to collect 2,000 church and community cookbooks, many of which she donated to the Minnesota History Center's library.
The duo consulted many of these and other books in their research.
Miller and Eighmey found that Swedish meatball recipes abounded, and not just in Lutheran cookbooks. They found the recipe in most church and community cookbooks, even the Presbyterians and the Madison, Wis., B'nai B'rith.
One quirk they discovered in their research: Jello-O salad preference colors seemed to change according to states, with North Dakotans favoring red, Iowans orange, and Minnesotans lemon or lime.
