A not-so-nostalgic look back to early 1960s Kentucky

My main question about Morehead Woman's Club's Our Ways with Food (undated, but from sometime between 1961 and early 1963 since the address I found doesn't have a zip code, the book was sold to help fund construction of a hospital that opened in July 1963, and one recipe mentioned that Jacqueline Kennedy was the first lady) is why one woman decided to declare herself to be a club. It seems like it would be easier to collect a lot of recipes if it had been Morehead Women's Club, but maybe the sole member was very determined.

I'm joking of course, but do want to note that the area was known for dedicated and energetic women, as the hospital is named after Dr. Claire Louise Caudill, who got tired of having to send her patients to far-away hospitals and started the push for a local hospital herself. 

The writers of this cookbook believed that women (whom I'm sure they imagined as being their audience) were intelligent (about cooking, at least) and self-sufficient. I can tell because, like the writers of other fund-raising cookbooks, the people who provided their recipes for this one did not believe in hand-holding. Cooks better know how to cook! I--used to modern recipes with step-by-step instructions (Okay-- you know I'm just pretending because I mostly read old cookbooks, but play along with my premise!)-- was a bit mystified at first by the Crabmeat Casserole that did not list crabmeat among the ingredients.

Not to worry! The crabmeat is in the instructions below the ingredient list-- along with all the other major components of the casserole aside from the sauce: the noodles, mushrooms, and buttered cracker crumbs or slivered almonds for a crunchy topping. (Home cooks still better know how to make a cheese sauce from the ingredients that are listed at the top, though, as Ethel Louise Prince is not going to walk them through the process-- just like she's not going to give any indication of the can sizes for the crabmeat or mushrooms or any measurement for the toppings.)

The opposing page offers a similarly "figure-it-out-yourself" recipe, with the Grits and Cheese Casserole. (Surprise! The sole ingredients listed up top are neither grits nor cheese).

The grits do eventually get added to the saltwater, along with one stick each of garlic cheese and margarine. (I thought Southern cooks insisted on real butter, but as with any broad generalization, this is an oversimplification.) Then cooks have to "Beat 2 eggs in measuring cup and fill with milk." No word on the size of the measuring cup, though-- I'm guessing one cup, but I'm just a Midwesterner making a guess about a Southern recipe, so I could definitely be wrong. One would only find out for sure when the casserole came out-- hopefully not overly soupy or overly dense.

At least most cooks who are familiar with salads like ambrosia or cole slaw won't suffer too much from the lack of directions for Slaw de Luxe. Just mix the ingredients and refrigerate!

The confusion here is just ... what is this? It's kinda cole slaw, kinda ambrosia, kinda glorified rice, and also diced cheese? Maybe this is the hybrid salad for when you're out of salad marshmallows?

At least the writers did make a concession to those pre-internet times when readers couldn't just look up an unfamiliar regional term on the internet.

We know that Guinea Squash Pie calls for eggplant, thanks to the subtitle AND the ingredient list. (As a modern reader, I can learn that this regional name comes from the fact that eggplant were associated with people who had been enslaved from western areas Africa.

This cookbook is yet another reminder that the past was definitely NOT a better time we should strive to emulate now-- because of slavery if you're a decent person or at least because we have more healthcare facilities and better-written recipes now if you're the type who doesn't care about anything unless it affects you personally. (Not that I am aware of any people like that.)