Food Friday: Sheep's Tongues with Tomato Sauce

Today's recipe for Sheep's Tongues with Tomato Sauce comes from a California community cookbook published in 1907. San Anselmo Cook - Book by the Ladies of the Saint Anselm's Church.

Page 57, http://archive.org/stream/sananselmocookbo00sainrich

A search on the Internet shows that this church still exists and was actually founded in 1908, the year of the publication of this cookbook. Perhaps this cookbook helped raise the funds necessary for their new building which cost over $21,000.  This cookbook includes pages of advertising from businesses in this, then, new community. St. Anselm's website is here and you can read more about their history here.

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Food Friday: Pickled Crab Apples

Today's recipe comes from What's Cooking in Massachusetts. Favorite Bay State Recipes. Compiled by The Massachusetts 4-H Foundation. (n.d.).

I was a member of 4-H for about a year when I was around 11 years old. I took a cooking class and even competed in a cooking contest. Unfortunately, I did not win any recognition because the judges were not impressed with my jello salad.

This community cookbook contains recipes attributed to different counties in Massachusetts but not to the individual author. Names of sponsors, both individuals and groups, appear at the end.

Today's recipe is Pickled Crab Apples. I have a fondness for crab apples because my maternal grandmother had a huge crab apple tree that we cousins used for ammunition against each other. A cousin better be able to run pretty fast or they got pegged with a crab apple upside their head. (Not that I ever did that, of course).

 I didn't realize until I was an adult, that people actually used crab apples for eating.

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Where Food Comes From: Child Labor in the Early 20th Century

Boys Working in a Sardine Factory. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mopa1/5710936111/

One of my favorite websites to read is from the publishers of the magazine Mental Floss. In the last few days they posted an excellent article by Jill Harness entitled, The Depressing Stories Behind 20 Vintage Child Labor Pictures.

The haunting photographs of children working in the early 1900s, some as young as 5 years old, provides a glimpse into food production for the era. Some foods were made available and presumably cheaper on the backs of child workers. Photos show children picking cranberries, peeling shrimp and shucking oysters. Obviously children worked on family farms but they also hired out for work to help supplement the family income.

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Take a Sneak Peek at From the Family Kitchen

My new book, From the Family Kitchen: Discover your Food Heritage and Preserve Favorite Recipes (F + W Media, 2012) is set to be released at the end of April. Through Google Books you can take a look at some of the content now before it's released.

Check it out here .

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Join Me Tonight on GeneaBloggers Radio

Tonight I will be joining hosts Thomas MacEntee and Lisa Alzo and guests Maureen Taylor and Beverly Rice as we discuss researching female ancestors. You can read more about tonight's episode Grandma, Is That You? Locating your Female Ancestors here.

I will be talking about my love of family history and food history and my upcoming book From the Family Kitchen published by F + W Media.

Celebrate Women's History Month by talking about female ancestors!

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