Grandma Kenyon's Favorite Recipes

My grandmother, Harriet Shookman Kenyon, was known far and wide for a lot of her own special recipes, particularly her Deviled Food Cake, Doughnuts, Angel Food Cake, and a wide variety of pickles.  Hattie likely knew how to make most of them from repetition and memory.  Sadly, I have only one of those recipes in her handwriting, that of her homemade doughnuts.

Hattie kept a scrapbook*** with a wide variety of clippings, cards, announcements, and hand-written pieces of paper that she assembled over the years.  She glued them on to the pages with care so that the reverse side could be seen, or a folded piece of paper could be opened.  Scattered through the book are a variety of recipes that she obviously treasured and I am sharing them here.  Some of them may be her own recipes as they are not identified, but others come from her mother and sisters, distant relatives, and friends in the community.  

Many of these types of recipes are no longer in use as very few people today do extensive baking let alone need to, or even want to, make their own catsup, pickles, or wall-paper cleaner.  During the post WWI to Depression era when Hattie's collection was assembled it was important to use up bacon fat or the last of the stale bread that was made a few days ago so that the precious ingredients would not go to waste and allow you to stretch your larder as well as your hard-to-come-by cash money.  

The assortment of recipes gives a picture of a life vastly different from today.  These are foods and customs that played a social role in a time now long past.  Many people have lost the knowledge and the eagerness that delayed gratification brings of biting into the first fruits and vegetables of a given season and the recipes that sprang from them, the delight of the special recipes that only a neighbor could make for the town festival, such as Hattie's Deviled Food Cake; and the richness of choice and taste that came from each region's way of using what was produced close to home.  These recipes are time transporters.  Find one and give it a try.  You will be giving yourself the gift of a past memory.

Click the images to enlarge them.

Bread Sponge Cake (front and back)

The ranch cook that is referred to in this recipe may have been the cook at the Ingleside Club and Resort near Phoenix that Hattie and sisters, Lura and Ina, worked during the winters of 1910/11 and 1913/14.  For information on how bakers of a century ago made a typical bread sponge, go to https://vintagerecipesandcookery.com/what-is-a-bread-sponge/ This would have been a yeast-raised cake rather than one made with baking soda or baking powder.

Cheese Biscuits and "Salma-Gundi" Salad

Harriet obviously had the help of a little one with a pencil while baking one day!

Note that there is no temperature for baking the biscuits as it is likely that a wood or coal oven was used.  It was not until sometime after the 1935 New Deal's Rural Electrification Administration (REA) paved the way for electrical power to be made available.  The first REA service in Wisconsin was on 7 May 1937 and Purdy Valley would have followed at some point after that.

Cream Pie and Butterscotch Pie

There are two recipes for cream pie, each would have made use of fresh milk either by skimming the cream that rose to the top in unhomogenized milk or using what was left depending on what the family had available to use after other cooking and baking.  The last two recipes are credited to "M.R.G" who may possibly be Eva (Martin) Griffin.

Sugar Cookies, Ice Box Cookies and Mock Angel Food Cake

These recipes were shared with Hattie.  The Sugar Cookie recipe came from her younger sister, Gladys Shookman, the Ice Box Cookie recipe came from her oldest sister, Lura Shookman Harris, and the Mock Angel Food Cake recipe from Lettie Purdy Hart, one of Charles Kenyon's many cousins living in the Purdy Valley area.  Ice Box Cookies would indeed have been chilled in an ice box in the day before electrified refrigeration.

Favorite Cucumber Pickles (Chunk Pickles)

Harriet was well known for her own pickle recipes, but this is one shared with her by her sister Hazel "Ina" Shookman Beran.  They must have been fabulous to be worth all the time and effort!

Sweet Sour Pickles and Molasses Drop Cookies

Another pickle recipe from Harriet's sister, Ina.  These were one of Harriet's daughter, Kathleen's, favorite pickles.  Lucy Larson, also of Purdy Valley, shared her recipe for Molasses Drop cookies.  They used up the last of the milk after it had soured.  

Jelly Roll

Shared by Rena Jeffers.  This recipe assumes that the cook knew how hot the wood or coal oven should be running, how long to bake it, know when it was done and how to turn it into a Jelly Roll when finished!  

Salad Dressing - Soft Molasses Cookies - Date Filled Cookies

Bottled salad dressings were not yet available.  Shared by Lettie Purdy Hart.

One of my favorite cookies as a child were Date Filled Cookies.  Harriet's daughter, and my mother, Kathleen made these occasionally.  

Apple Sauce Cake

The only baking instructions are to bake "slowly" for about 40 minutes.  Harriet had to make this cake while the oven was cooling down and before adding fresh fuel to the fire.  This recipe came from Lura Shookman Harris.

Picalilli & Grape Nut Bread

Picalilli is a cooked salad or relish recipe from Lura Shookman Harris to be canned for use in the winter when fresh vegetables would be scarce.  The Grape Nut Bread came from "P.J.V." who may be Phebe Jeanette Vandervort, grandmother to Harriet's husband, Charles.

Tomato Mince Meat

Made while waiting for the tomatoes and apples to ripen in the garden and on the tree.  Sister, Lura, shared this recipe for a pie filling.  This was likely a recipe that was meant to be canned as a peck of both the green tomatoes and green apples was used.

Peanut Butter Betty

A good use for stale bread which was often on hand as homemade bread had no preservatives. 

It serves 6 people, "polite" servings!

Pop Corn Balls

One of my favorites!  My mother and Harriet's daughter, Kathleen, made these for us when we were small and for treats to pass out for Halloween. Recipe shared by Rena Jeffers.

Tomato Catsup

The recipe page is dated September 29, 1933 and the first one is shared by Elsie Kuthlow and the second by Mrs. Bill Griffin.  Both took 2-3 hours of cooking on the stove before eventually being canned and sealed in jars for future use. 

Wall Paper Cleaner

This is quite a recipe which includes kerosene and ammonia and then cooking in a double boiler!

White Cookies - Mother's Ginger Snaps

What a treasure the Ginger Snap recipe must have been to Harriet and her family, as her mother, Dora Manley Shookman, passed in 1921.  Dora's 4th to 6th generation descendants are now living.

Ginger Refrigerator Cookies

This is one of Harriet's more recent recipes.  It calls for two things which were not likely available in the farmhouse in Purdy Valley:  a refrigerator and an oven that could be set at 375 degrees.  This was also a recipe using whatever farm products might be available with the bacon drippings or lard.  Crisco became available for the first time in 1911 but would have been an expensive convenience.

 ***Harriet's scrapbook was inherited by Helen (Kenyon) Kelley, then inherited by Jean (Kelley) Gluege who gifted it to Karla (Von Fumetti) Staudt for preservation and use in our shared family history.  

© Karla Von Fumetti Staudt

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored on a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior permission of the copyright owner and publisher.