Michigan Cookbooks: 150 Years of Mostly Good Meals
Fundraising Cookbooks
Fundraising cookbooks are so common today that it is hard to remember a time when they did not exist. However, America's first fundraising "receipt books" were sold during the Civil War to raise money to care for injured soldiers as well as for the widows and children left behind by those who died. The first receipt book is believed to have been printed in New York City in 1861. After the war was over, the women who had formed the wartime "Ladies Aid Societies" began to sell cookbooks to raise money for local charities, benefiting countless churches, hospitals, schools, and other institutions across the nation.1
When considered solely on their culinary merits, the recipes found in these books are not without their critics. As M. F. K. Fisher, born in Albion, Michigan, in 1908 and a noted food writer of the 1940s and 1950s, archly observed:
A point to be wary about in the usually dependable recipes given in most such collections is the seasoning; it is, to put it mildly, a challenge to your inventive palate, since it either says, "Salt, pepper," or just "Salt." Apparently any other condiments were considered foreign and perhaps even sacriligeous (sic) by members of the Saint James' Sewing Circle in 1902. Otherwise, recipes in such books are dependable, if you like salty things.2
Fisher might have had a kinder opinion of these volumes if she had examined some Michigan cookbooks, which discovered seasonings such as thyme in the 1870s (see the recipe for potted pigeons below).
The majority of fundraising cookbooks eschewed extraneous words. Perhaps to avoid offense or perhaps because the compiler saw the job as publishing the recipes and nothing more, most fundraising cookbooks adopted a policy of "the recipes and just the recipes." Sometimes, however, fundraising cookbooks included various types of commentary. Poetry of varying quality was not uncommon. The following verse preceded the section on "Soups" in the cookbook the Muskegon Woman's Club published in 1912:
One morning in the garden bed,
The onion, carrot, cabbage said,
Unto the parsley group -
"Oh when shall we all meet again,
In thunder, lightning, hail or rain?"
Alas! They cried in tones of pain,
"In the Soup."3
Some advice given in 1945 about how much sweetener is necessary in a cherry pie produced this tart observation: "You may need more sugar. A cherry can be as sour as a deacon with a bunion."4
Overall these volumes rarely demonstrate literary aspirations. Even the titles are straightforward. For every clever title, such as Our Owen Cuisine, complied by the women of St. Owen in Birmingham, or You Be the Judge by the members of the Ingham County Bar Auxiliary, there are dozens of "Treasured Recipes," "Tested Recipes," or "Favorite Recipes."5
Illustrations are not typically found in fundraising cookbooks, either. Normally the only one is found on the book's cover, and even these are modest efforts at best. In church cookbooks, a picture of the church sometimes appears either on the cover or on the first page of the volume. A very modest trend toward including more elaborate illustrative material appears at the end of the twentieth century in some of these volumes.
The first known charitable cookbook published in Michigan appeared in 1871. The Grand Rapids Receipt Book was compiled by the ladies of the Congregational Church.6 With this publication Michigan became the sixth state to publish a charitable cookbook.7 A few years later, TheHome Messenger Book of Tested Receipts was sold to support the work of the Detroit Home of the Friendless.8TheHome Messenger, which endorsed temperance, recommended substituting "one-half ounce of blade mace, steeped in one teacup of lemon juice" for demon rum and other forms of alcohol.9
By the late 1880s and 1890s, cookbooks benefiting churches or church-supported charities had become relatively common in Michigan. In 1887 the Ladies Aid Society of the [ Ann Arbor] Methodist Episcopal Church brought forth The Jubilee Cook Book. The Grand Rapids Cook Book, which was compiled by the "Ladies of Grand Rapids" on behalf of the Congregational Church, was published in that city in 1888. What the Baptist Brethren Eat and How the Sisters Serve It, was compiled by the ladies of the First Baptist Church ( Port Huron) in 1889. In 1893 The Charlotte Cook Book: A Selection of Tested Recipes was prepared by the ladies of the First Congregational Church and published locally. In 1895 the ladies of the Pilgrim Congregational Church [Lansing] published ThePilgrim Cook Book. Closing out the century, the Ladies Aid Society of the [ Ann Arbor] Congregational Church published The Ann Arbor Cookbook in 1899.10
Church organizations were among the earliest, and remain some of the most prolific, publishers of Michigan cookbooks. Other charitable organizations, however, soon recognized the value of cookbooks in fundraising. Among the first Michigan examples of cookbooks in support of nonreligious organizations are TheDinner Bell, 1889, the O.E.S Cook Book, published sometime between 1895 and 1910, the Fremont Grange Cook Book, 1904, and the Sebewaing Cook Book: A Selection of Tried and True recipes, which was compiled by the Sebewaing ladies for the benefit of the Sebewaing General Hospital and published in 1912.11
Fundraising cookbooks were printed in great numbers throughout the twentieth century and continue to be a fundraising tool of the twenty-first century. The fact that cookbooks have become regular features in some institutions' fundraising activities illustrates the continued vitality of this tool for soliciting funds. Institutions repeatedly go "back to the well," issuing new books as time passes. For example, the Detroit Institute of Arts has printed at least two fundraising cookbooks during the past twenty years. An even more striking example of this phenomenon is the twenty-one volumes published under the title Le Gala de Cuisine, spanning the years 1978-1999, that have accompanied an annual dinner benefiting the Cranbrook Schools located in Bloomfield Hills.12
Le Gala de Cuisine is also striking in that it contradicts a trend that began in the 1930s: specialty printers that exist solely to issue fundraising cookbooks. The appeal of such printers is obvious. Organizations can avoid the problems involved in the actual production of such volumes. Although this choice clearly benefits many organizations, using such companies could lead to unexpected results. For example, Fundcraft Publishers of Pleasanton, Kansas, a popular printer for fundraising cookbooks, was fond of the title, Butter 'n Love Recipes. As a result, between 1977 and 1984 no fewer than eleven Michigan groups published a cookbook under that title, including the Baldwin Lioness Club (1984); the Happy Clovers 4-Club of Niles (1984); St. Paul United Methodist Church of Cheboygan (1984); St. Paul Lutheran Church of Temperance (1982); Big Beaver United Methodist Women of Troy (1981); Reed City United Methodist Women (1981); the Romeo Elkettes (1981); the First Congregational Church, Winthrop Circle, of St. Clair (1980); the Li Tah Ni Chapter of the American Business Women's Association of Flint (1977); Eagles Auxiliary no. 3655 of Beaverton (1977); and the Women of the Moose, chapter 1135 of Belleville (1977).13
Despite all of their limitations , fundraising cookbooks are quite valuable to researchers. As Mary Anna DuSablon notes, charitable cookbooks are not usually for beginners because they assume a certain basic knowledge of cooking, but they are also usually not "an exhibition in food fantasy." Typically, they avoid the excesses that professional chefs, food magazines, and even corporate publications sometimes adopt in their quest for novelty. Admittedly, DuSablon's advice should be taken with a grain of salt (pepper optional); upscale communities do occasionally produce fundraising cookbooks featuring recipes of considerable complexity that rival the "food fantasies" of professional chefs. Sometimes these volumes are even written by professional chefs. In the end, however, fundraising cookbooks document what the locals were cooking, salt and all, at a specific time and place. And this is what makes them valuable to historians.14
Corporate Publications
Corporate publications include recipe books issued by a wide variety of groups linked together only by the fact that they profit if consumers use the recipes or buy the books. Both commercial cookbooks and corporate publications were issued in hopes of making money, however they differed in two crucial aspects. First, commercial cookbooks were sold; corporate publications were distributed for free or for a nominal sum. Second, the income from commercial cookbooks was derived solely from the sale of the volume, whereas corporate publications sought to make money "downstream" by convincing consumers to both buy a product or products used in a recipe and, assuming the recipe was successful, encouraging them to keep on purchasing the product. Broadly, four groups issued corporate cookbooks: food manufacturers, food growers' promotional associations, appliance manufacturers, and utility companies.
Food manufacturers, which canned, processed, refrigerated, and eventually froze all manner of food, quickly discovered that consumers were often unfamiliar with how to use the products they were offered. One way to improve consumer knowledge, and increase sales, was to develop recipes using the firm's products and distribute those recipes to consumers. Often these recipes were conveniently printed on the box or can in which the product was sold.
Less frequently than food manufacturers, agricultural trade groups, or governmental agencies created to promote major state crops and often funded by the industry itself, would issue cookbooks promoting ways to use their crops. In Michigan, cherries and beans were grown in great quantities and many recipes for these foodstuffs were created and endorsed by industrywide promotional groups.
Appliance manufacturers also offered recipes so that potential purchasers would be able to use their new gas or electric appliances successfully. Gas and electric-utility companies also published recipes. Utility companies quickly realized that, regardless of who made the appliance, convincing consumers to cook on stoves powered by gas or electricity meant that they would be gas or electric customers for as long as those appliances lasted.
Promotional cookbooks printed by food and kitchen-equipment companies first appeared in America after the Civil War.18 Michigan companies, particularly cereal manufacturers located in Battle Creek, played an important role in printing and distributing corporately 
produced recipes and cookbooks. C. W. Post and W. K. Kellogg, both of whom made fortunes in breakfast cereals and spawned large numbers of local imitators, pointed out the importance of advertising to their success. "All I have I owe to advertising," Post was quoted as saying.19 W. K. Kellogg had the same faith in advertising. In the early days of the production of corn flakes, he invested one-third of his available funds in a single ad published in the Ladies Home Journal.20 Both men happily printed recipes that always included at least one of their many products, and their successors in a variety of industries enthusiastically continued this tradition.
1 Margaret Cook, America's Charitable Cooks: A Bibliography of Fund-Raising Cook Books Published in the United States, 1861-1915 (Kent, Ohio: The author, 1971), 7, 173, 222. Cook's volume actually leaves the reader puzzled about the publication date of America's first charitable cookbook. Although Cook lists a New York publication dated 1861 on page 173, on page 222 she writes that "the first cook book published and sold in the United States to benefit a charitable cause" was printed in Pennsylvania in 1864. Why the 1861 volume Cook lists does not merit this distinction is left unexplained. DuSablon, America's Collectible Cookbooks, 145, cites the 1861 work from New York listed in Cook's bibliography as the first charitable cookbook in the United States. Janice Bluestein Longone, "'Tried Receipts': An Overview of America's Charitable Cookbooks," in Recipes for Reading: Community Cookbooks, Stories, Histories, ed. Anne L. Bower (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), 21, sidesteps the issue by commenting, "Cook considers the first cookbook published and sold in the United States to benefit a charitable cause to be A Poetical Cook-Book, issued on behalf of the Sanitary Fair held in Philadelphia in 1864." This statement is true as far as it goes, but it does not answer question of why Cook thought this was true since she also lists the 1861 New York volume.
2 M. F. K. Fisher, How to Cook a Wolf (Cleveland: World Publishing, 1944); quoted in DuSablon, America's Collectible Cookbooks, 152. Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher was born in Albion, Michigan, but her family relocated to California when she was two years old. For information about Fisher, see http://www.mfkfisher.net/about.htm. Site viewed July 3, 2006.
3 Muskegon Woman's Club, Cook Book: A Collection of Choice Tested Recipes (Muskegon, Mich.: Dana Printing Co., 1912), 9.
May Knight, as quoted in Larry Massie, "The Romance of Old Cookbooks," Encore (September 2005): 46.
4Our Owen Cuisine (Pleasanton, Kan.: Fundcraft Publishers, 1980); You Be the Judge (Lansing: Ingham County Bar Auxiliary, 1972).
5Grand Rapids Receipt Book (Grand Rapids, Mich.: H. M. Hinsdill, 1873); see also Cook, America's Charitable Cooks, 131.
6 Margaret Cook lists earlier cookbooks in New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Massachusetts. Cook, America's Charitable Cooks; 77, 106, 173, 222, 258.
7 Isabella G. D. Stewart, Sally B. Sill, and Mary B. Duffield, The Home Messenger Book of Tested Receipts (Detroit: E. B. Smith, 1878).
8 Quoted in Longone and Longone, American Cookbooks, 38.
9The Jubilee Cook Book (Ann Arbor: Courier Steam Printing House, 1887); The Grand Rapids Cook Book (Grand Rapids: H. Leonard's Sons, 1888); What the Baptist Brethren Eat and How the Sisters Serve It (1889); The Charlotte Cook Book: A Selection of Tested Recipes (Charlotte, Mich.: Perry & McGrath, 1893); The Pilgrim Cook Book (Lansing: Pilgrim Congregational Church, 1895); The Ann Arbor Cookbook (Ann Arbor: Courier Office, 1899). Those interested in a list of other early Michigan charitable cookbooks should consult Cook, America's Charitable Cooks, 131-38.
10The Dinner Bell ( Ionia, Mich.: Ladies Library Association, n.d.); O.E.S. Cook Book (Hillsdale, Mich.: Order of the Eastern Star, [1895-1910]); Fremont Grange Cook Book (Fremont, Mich.: News-Indicator, 1904); The Sebewaing Cook Book: A Selection of Tried and True Recipes ( Sebewaing, Mich.: Sebewaing General Hospital, 1912). The Dinner Bell carries no date of publication. Cook dated it to 1889, however others have dated it to the first years of the twentieth century.
11 Detroit Institute of Art publications include, Cynthia Jo Fogliatti, ed., A Visual Feast: The Detroit Institute of Arts Cookbook (Detroit: Founders Society, 1985); A Culinary Collection: A Cookbook from the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit: The Institute, 2000); Le Gala de Cuisine Committee, Le Gala de Cuisine (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.: n.p., 1998). It is unclear whether Le Gala de Cuisine has continued to publish in the twenty-first century.
12 Catalogue records for the eleven listed volumes can be found in CENTRA, Central Michigan University Libraries' online catalogue. For information regarding specialty printers, see Andrew F. Smith, ed., Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America ( New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 1: 312.
13 DuSablon, America's Collectible Cookbooks, 139.
14Grand Rapids Receipt Book, 24.
18 Gerald Carson, Cornflake Crusade: From the Pulpit to the Breakfast Table (New York: Rinehart, 1957), 193.
19 Ibid., 202.
20The Michigan Bean Cookbook (Lansing: Michigan Bean Commission, [1966]), 29.
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