New Delineator Recipes

New Delineator Recipes, published in 1930 by The Butterick Publishing Company. This delightful little cookbook was owned by my great grandmother, Minnie Eucebia Alligood Silas.  Since bringing home a few vintage cookbooks that had belonged to my mom I have enjoyed the peek into homemaking in the generations before me.  Cooking is not by any means one of my strengths. We eat at home most of the time but even after 32 years of marriage my culinary skills are pretty lame. Sigh... getting back to this little jewel of a cookbook!  There are all types of recipes and plenty of information and tips in this book that give a glimpse into life in the kitchen in the early 1900s.  From how to properly set and decorate the dining table to the section on "Egging and Crumbing Foods for Frying," most of the recipes are not the type we would use in today's health conscious world!  Here are a few examples of pictures from the book and their captions: 

Canned vegetables provide a splendid variety
for  every day in the year.

Evaporated milk may be used in any recipe which calls
for milk.  The well stocked pantry will contain a
supply of this convenient product.

Cereals, hot, dry, in so many stages of puffiness, flakiness,
steaming goodness and crunchy tastiness, that every
appetite under the sun is sure to be gratified,
satisfied, and perfectly content.

Something tells me that the author of the New Delineator Recipes was trying to convince the "modern" homemaker that she needed to bring some "prepared" foods into the home!  But, if she was not quite there yet, here are a few directions for preparing the main dish, that I gather, was most likely chosen from the backyard:

An old fowl will require at least three or four hours' slow cooking, but a year-old chicken should be done in one and one-half hours. 

In reference to preparing Roasted Goose: Select a goose that is about four months old; an old goose is better braised than roasted.

Any woman knows that the way to figure out which are the best recipes in another woman's cookbook is to look for the pages with spills, tears, and notes.  It is easy to find the favorite recipe in this book.  Check the Family Recipe page on this blog for the One-Two-Three-Four Cake that I know she must have baked because I have heard about it my whole life, and, that page in New Delineator Recipes is covered with stains!

 I love that she wrote her name and address
on the  inside cover of the book!

Minnie Eucebia Alligood Silas was born June 25, 1878 in Laurens County, Georgia and lived most of her life in Rentz, Georgia. Her Dad, Israel Augustus Alligood, was featured earlier this week in the Tombstone Tuesday post.  She married John Franklin Silas, Jr. at the age of 19 in 1897.  They raised eight children, (including my grandmother, Mildred Arlene Silas).  Minnie was known to have loved her chickens and she gave many of them names making it especially hard to choose which ones would be featured in a New Delineator Recipe and spared the dinner table!

This photograph was taken in Miami, Florida at the home of Minnie's daughter Mildred Arlene Silas (Thomas).  

Pictured from left to right:
Back Row: Children, John Owen (Pap) Silas, Rembert Julian Silas, Mildred Arlene Silas (Thomas)

Middle Row: Henrietta Woody Silas, Minnie Eucebia Alligood Silas, Daniel Claude Thomas

Seated: Grandaughters, Eucebia Jane Thomas (Abbate) and Phyllis Margaret Thomas (Pinder), and Great grandchildren, Thomas Bernard Pinder, and Claudia Ann Pinder

The Silas Home
Rentz, Georgia

Grandma Silas, as she was affectionately known to her family, died on May 15, 1955 in Miami, Florida.  She is buried in the Rentz Cemetery, Rentz, Georgia.