Valley Girl Views: Housewife's Delight - The Lewisburg Saturday News Cookbook

Sometime around 1885, The Lewisburgh Saturday News published a cookbook, named the Housewife's Delight, The Saturday News Cook Book

Valley Spirit, June 1885

I have found a couple of old listings for the cookbook on ebay, with a few photos in the listings. The recipes are typical of the time, and require some deciphering, as most of us are far removed from 1880's cooking methods, and even 1880s ingredients.

But they make for interesting reading. I've typed a few out below each page, to make them easier to read.

Tomato Chowder

Slice a peck of green tomatoes, six green peppers, and four onions; strew a teacupt of salt over them. In the morning, turn off the water, put them in a kettle with vinegar enough to cover them, a teacup of sugar, one of grated horseradish, a tablespoonful of cloves, allspice, and cinnamon each. Boil until soft.

Egg Soup

Boil a leg of lamb about two hours in water enough to cover it. After it has boiled about an hour and when carefully skimmed, add one-half cup of rice, and pepper and salt to taste. Have ready in your tureen two eggs well-beaten; add the boiling soup a little at a time stirring constantly. Serve the lamb with drawn butter garnished with parsley and hard-boiled eggs cut into slices.

Green Pea Soup

One peck of green peas, four tablespoonfuls of lard, heated in the kettle; put in the peas and stir them until perfectly green; add pepper and salt and pour in as much water as you want soup; boil three-quarters of an hour, then add one teacupful of milk, thickened with one tablespoonful of flour; put in the soup two or three young onions, cut fine and fried a light brown in butter. As you take it up, add yolks of two eggs beaten in a little cream.

Egg Balls

Two hard-boiled yolks of eggs; mix with raw yolk of one egg a little flour; roll the size of a hazle-nut.

I am not certain, as the above is the entire recipe, but I believe "Egg Balls" are to be dropped into soup, like dumplings. Rachel Ray has a modern Egg Ball recipe that is cooked in boiling marinara sauce - https://www.rachaelrayshow.com/food/recipes/18521_egg_balls

Poverty Pudding

Place a layer of apple sauce in a buttered pudding-dish, a layer of cracker or bread-crumbs, sprinkled with pats of butter and seasoned with spice to taste, then a layer of sauce, and so on , the upper layer being crumbs, pats of butter on the top, bake; eat with cream.

Queen Of Puddings

One pint bread-crumbs, one quart milk, one cup sugar, butter size of an egg; yolks of four eggs;flavor with lemon, and bake as a custard; beat whites of four eggs to a froth, mist with a cup of powdered sugar and juice of a lemon; spread a layer of fruit jelly over the custard while hot; cover with the frosting, bake until slightly brown. To be eaten with cold cream, or warm, with sauce the may be preffered.

Rye Minute Pudding

Heat milk to the boiling point; salt to taste and stir in gradually rye flour, to make a thick mush.; cook about fifteen minutes, eat with sugar and cream.

The cook book was published by newspaper owner/editor, and congressman, B.K. Focht
He's also known as "The Father Of Old Age Pensions" (today, social security)

Focht borrowed $500 to found the Lewisburgh Saturday News, when he was just 18 years old. You can read more about him here:

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-father-of-old-age-pensions-bk-focht.html