What? You expect a cookbook to include recipes for the menus? What kind of a socialist plot is that?

Republicans are known for advocating self-reliance, and that follows right on through to some of the menus and recipes in The Republican Cookbook (Brownstone Press, 1969).Why do I say that? Well, some of the Republicans sent in not just recipes, but entire menus. While some (such as Nancy Reagan, surprisingly!) provided both a menu and a recipe for at least one component of said menu, others apparently wanted to encourage self-sufficiency by offering a menu and completely unrelated recipes. If readers want to make the menu, then they better have the gumption to find their own recipes. Nobody was going to coddle those readers who expected to be told how to make the menu. No handouts! What is this, the welfare state?

Several contributors sent a menu and then a single completely unrelated recipe, but I'm going to focus on the ones who sent a menu and then really hammered home their unwillingness to tell how to make it by submitting multiple recipes, none of which have anything to do with the menu.

Claude R. Kirk, Jr., then the governor of Florida, provided the following dinner menu:

Okay, so a lot of this is not exactly something most experienced cooks at the time needed a recipe for. They could toss a green salad and bake some potatoes, after all. Still, you'd think the recipe list might include a way to add flair to the fresh green beans or the family's recipe for cocktail sauce or cherries jubilee. Nope. There's a Shrimp-Avocado Salad:

(Maybe this actually should have been on the Reagans' page since Nancy was all about California produce!)

There's a Crab Meat Casserole:

At least both of the preceding recipes highlight seafood, which makes sense in Florida. The final recipe seems more like it should have come from, say, a Pennsylvania Republican than a Florida one.

The Nevadan Governor Paul Laxalt also resisted making his dinner menu too easy to replicate.

Okay, maybe he didn't feel as if he should give a full recipe for California Wine Chicken if he was supposed to be representing Nevada, but he seems to think that the Torte is sufficiently foreign to readers that there's a note to explain it's "An Italian soufflé-type dish made with zucchini and cheese." Surely, that's reason enough to give the recipe for that, at least?

Of course not. What are you? Some kind of commie who thinks everybody should share?

There are a couple of Basque recipes. One is for a punch:

The other one is for a soup:

I discovered this is likely because there's a significant Basque population in Nevada. One wonders why he didn't submit a Basque-themed dinner menu instead of a Californian/ Italian one then. 

And finally, there is a random Barbecue Marinade recipe.

You might be tempted to argue that this is actually for the California Wine Chicken on the menu, but that's being too generous. This recipe calls for cooking Sherry, and if you want to brag that the recipe uses California wine, then cooking Sherry is probably not the type you'd pick to highlight.

You can tell I'm just some socialist slacker because I'm not tempted to make either of the dinner menus. Too much work for this snowflake.