The Town Crier: 1923 Dalton Cook Book (part two)

Published 2:00 pm Saturday, February 8, 2025

Last week we opened the pages of the Dalton Cook Book from 1923, put out by The Woman’s Auxiliary of First Presbyterian Church. Included with the recipes were ads in the back of the book, published by Dalton’s own A.J.  Showalter Co., Printers and Binders, Dalton.

The recipes we perused previously taught us that oysters were popular 100 years ago and that salsify is a root vegetable that tastes like an oyster. This week we’ll jump to the good parts of the book and see what was for dessert on the Sunday dinner table back then, then take a look at some of the sponsors that came along for the ride.

In the cook book there is one section each for Soups, Vegetables and Meats, but for those with a sweet tooth there are six sections; Pies and Puddings, Cold Desserts, Cakes, Cake Fillings, Small Cakes (I guess they like cakes!), and finally a section on Candy. And there’s a section at the end for Miscellaneous which includes recipes for Tapioca Pudding, Arrow Root jelly, cherry nectar and maple syrup. I hope you have plenty of sugar in the cupboard.

Starting with Pies and Puddings, it could have included custards as well, since there are a variety of custard dishes here. In case you’re wondering, custard and puddings are both made with sugar, eggs and milk, but puddings are thicker thanks to the addition of starch.

For the custard lover there is a selection of recipes for Cream Custard, Buttermilk Custard, Egg Custard, Molasses Custard, Sweet Potato Custard and two types of Lemon Custard. There are also two recipes for Lemon Pie and one for Lemon Tarts.

Pie recipes include Chocolate, Apple, Summer Mince Pie, two Butterscotch recipes, Cocoanut (as it’s spelled in the book) and Apple Pie Supreme.

Fitting in somewhere between cakes and pies are recipes for Apple Dumplings and Chocolate Rolls.

If pudding is your weakness, we have Sweet Potato Pudding (old-style), Sweet Potato (new style?), Pineapple, Tapioca, Bread, Rice, Plum, two kinds of Date Pudding, Black Walnut Pudding, Eggless Pudding (which uses two large spoons of melted lard), Zweiback Pudding, Banana Pudding, Kiss Pudding (not the Hershey’s kisses), Frozen, Snow and Frozen Coffee Puddings, and finally, Nesselrode Pudding, which seems to be a kind of frozen fruitcake concoction.

There are also recipes here for Whips, Creams, Frappe, Sherbets, Charlotte Russe, a Biscuit Glace that calls for “macaroons pounded to dust,” Parfait and a Syllabub, which is a kind of whipped cream loaded with booze.

And if you’ve ever wondered what Mincemeat is, this cook book describes it as including three pounds of chopped beef, six pounds of apples, half a pound of suet, two pounds of raisins, two of currants, one of citron and three of brown sugar.  Add in some spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and then two quarts of cider. Cook, it says, until the apples are done. This Mincemeat dish must weigh close to 20 pounds, so I hope you’ve got plenty of friends.

After all that sugar rush, we only now get to cake recipes. There are the usual cake suspects, but others stand out as unique. These include Economy Cake, which calls for being baked in “gem irons,” which is basically cast iron muffin pans, and White and Gold Cake, which alternates white and gold layers made from the whites of eggs on one hand and the yolks on the other.

There’s a recipe for Crazy Cake which calls for you to cook two-and-a-half cups of sugar until it “threads.” You pour that into beaten egg whites while you beat them some more. Crazy, huh?

There are two recipes for Japanese Cake. One is raisin based and the other orange based.

There’s a recipe for Ice Cream Cake that is not frozen, and several sponge cakes including Quaker Sponge Cake, Velvet Sponge Cake and a Cheap Sponge Cake. There are Sunshine Cake, Delicate Cake and Feather Cake recipes here, as well as a Scripture Cake where each ingredient is paired with an appropriate Bible verse. For example, it says “one tablespoon of honey (Genesis 43:11).” And to finish things off there are recipes for cookies, tea cakes, puffs and doughnuts … yum!

Finally, there are Special Recipes and Pickles and Preserves. Special Recipes include Olive Sandwiches, Waldorf Salad, Ribbon Sandwiches (egg salad) and Gypsy Squire (a custard, fruit-filled bread pudding). In Pickles and Preserves there is Chow-Chow like my grandmother used to make, Cabbage Catsup, two recipes for Spanish Pickles and several recipes utilizing watermelon rind as a type of sweet pickle. If you weren’t hungry when you started reading this, I bet you are now.

At the back of the book are pages of sponsors supporting the project. There’s an ad for Routh’s five and dime and ready-to-wear store. Under that ad is one for City Drug Store advertising everything from Whitman’s Candies to Conkey’s Poultry Remedies. To telephone Routh’s, dial 19-L, for City, phone 210.

There’s a full page ad for the soda pop Chero-Cola which was a cherry-flavored cola developed in Columbus and which was popular from 1910 to 1920. It then changed names to Nehi which focused on fruit sodas, and then, Chero-Cola was brought back on the market under the name Royal Crown (or RC) Cola.

Other businesses include Hurt’s Dry Cleaners, Dalton Bakery (the self-proclaimed “Palace of Sweets”) and the Smith Co., which made awnings, tents and striped convict clothing. That dovetails nicely with the ad for Manly Jail Works.

There’s an ad for Chickamauga Coffee produced by the Johnson Coffee Co. in Chattanooga, and, when you’ve finished eating, go see a movie at the Crescent or Shadowland movie theaters.

From the looks of the Dalton Cook Book, 1923 was a delicious year for Dalton!

Mark Hannah is a Dalton native who works in the film and video industry.