December Thrifty - Week 4 (and part of week 5) #3 ~ Vintage Community Cookbooks : Republican Women & Linly Heflin

NFRW Republican Woman's Holiday Cookbook, published in 1971. Recipes were solicited from the members of the National Federation of Republican Women.  The books contains tips and hints for numerous party themes with suggested menus and decor.

The recipes begin with a New Year's Eve party with featured dishes from Pat Nixon - Sesame Cheese Balls, Mamie Eisenhower's Million Dollar Fudge - a perennial favorite found in many a community cookbook and an Elk Stroganoff. Next up is a Lincoln Birthday celebration featuring "Pioneer" food including roast venison, followed by a Valentine's Day dinner with duck with orange sauce  or a broiled lobster tail.  All the chapters contain recipes for entrées, appetizers vegetables/sides, beverages and desserts appropriate for each occasion. 

A few other notable holidays are a birthday celebration for George Washington featuring a menu full of cherry themed meals, St. Patrick's Day with its corned beef & cabbage main meal along with Potatoes O'Brien and Irish oatmeal bread, a Fourth of July picnic with potato salad and fried chicken, while Labor Day favors grilled Cornish hens with a rice pilaf. Moving towards the last few months of the year are a Halloween party - sloppy joes, BBQ, candied apples and ciders & punch, plus the usual Thanksgiving and Christmas fare.

An unusual dish, a Shrimp Christmas tree made with endive and boiled shrimp - is not as horrifying as it sounds. The rest of the chapters delve into wedding & anniversaries, birthdays, a bachelor's brunch and a bridesmaid's luncheon (lobster and a mushroom fricassee) and finally game nights - bridge and poker parties.

The Linly Heflin Cook Book, published in 1978. This is the revised fourth edition, with the original printing date in 1962. Linley Heflin is a women's service organization founded in 1919 in Alabama. The group started as a surgical dressing unit and in the present day offers scholarships to Alabama colleges for women in the state. The organization also published a cookbook tilted "Oven Magic" in 1940. The dishes were collected by the ladies of the group and reflect old favorites, Southern treasures and "used with great success" recipes.

Of course the usual fare is featured: beverages - including the "Pussyfoof" ~ simple syrup, the juice from 4 oranges and 6 lemons and gin, hors d'oeuvres, soups, breads - with a strange dish titled beer dessert waffles, cheese & eggs, entrées - in addition to the oft found beef and chicken, there are recipes for sweetbreads, capon, squab and pheasant, veggies, salads & dressings, sauces, and  desserts - a dish named Kentucky Specialty - a concoction of marshmallows soaked in rum mixed with almond macaroons and topped with Cool Whip and cherries .

There is a chapter on patio foods with mostly grilled dishes including steaks, burger and kabobs. The final sections are wine and herb charts, plus helpful charts with weights, measurements and equivalents.