Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Check the list of contributors to Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters (Black Dog 2006) and you'll see names like Reverend Brown, Mrs. Chubb and Penny's Cousin Pearl. Not a celebrity chef, not even a trained chef listed. Marilynn Brass and her sister Sheila Brass aka The Brass Sisters are culinary antique experts and ferocious collectors of family recipes. These recipes tell stories about Americans and Canadians and how they lived. Marilynn and Sheila are expert home cooks and their book is full of the kind of warm-your-heart baking that was practiced before box cake mixes were on our supermarket shelves. The rich photographs by Andy Ryan show cakes and sweets, cookie cutters, cooking pamphlets and antique eggbeaters. This is a dense cookbook, full of wonderful stories and recipes crying out to be made again. What are heirloom recipes? In the preface about the two authors, they write: More than thirty years ago we discovered manuscript cookbooks-collections of personal recipes compiled by home cooks. Handwritten notes on crumbling scraps of paper or the pages of old, well-worn cookbooks, led us to "lost" family recipes….Over the years we have acquired more than eighty –five such collections of living recipes. From them, we selected 150 recipes of interest, researched them, and tested them in our own kitchens. (p. 11) Throughout the book are photographs of samples of these handwritten recipes from the 18th to the 20th centuries. The first chapter, Waking Up to Breakfast features a recipe for Cranberry-Orange Cream Scones (p. 36) that comes from a handwritten manuscript of the Carter Family, "A narrow notebook with a marbled maroon and grey cover, it was filled with tightly written segments on pages spattered with cooking stains." Some of the recipes have been tweaked by the Brass Sisters such as for the Brown Sugar Rhubarb Cake (p. 42): "We thought the cake would have a rather tangy taste, but the tart flavor of the rhubarb wasn't distinctive. Then we realized that the role of the rhubarb was to contribute to moistness. We added lemon zest and lemon juice to the batter to bring out the true tartness of the rhubarb, and it worked!" Hurray! When rhubarb season comes along, try this one instead of the usual strawberry-rhubarb pie. One of the most intriguing chapters is The Minister Comes to Dinner. The original inspiration came from a manuscript of handwritten recipes that date back to the 1920-40s, and contain recipes, menus and even shopping lists. Women made these special recipes when guests, such as a reverend, came to dinner. They include Mrs. Fleisher's Almond Cake (p. 130) served when Miss Edna Weil was introduced to society. The Reverend Brown's Cake comes from a handwritten index card from the late 19th century. It is a spice cake with a Caramel Sauce frosting. There is a whole chapter on summertime baking perfect for right now. There are also plenty of recipes to hand down to children and grandchildren. Get Heirloom Baking and let the Brass Sisters inspire you to add to their book – there are blank pages at the end where you can write your own recipes, paste your own pictures, and carry on the tradition. Previous articles: [Cookbook Reviews - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging, cookbooks, Cookbook Reviews --> back to Super Chef