Date: Fri 07-Feb-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Illustration: C

Location: A11

Quick Words:

Sarah-Booth-cookbook-Friends

Full Text:

Booth Book Honored For Its Originality

(with photos)

BY SHANNON HICKS

The Sarah Book Cookbook , a collection of recipes from Newtown's Colonial era

direct from a handwritten notebook of Sarah Edmond Booth, published by the

Friends of the Library, was honored January 31 with a Special Merit Citation

from the 1996 Tabasco’ Community Cookbook Awards.

On Friday afternoon, Barbara Hunter presented the Friends with the award. Ms

Hunter is president of Hunter & Associates, representing contest sponsors

McIlhenny Company. Ms Hunter administered the award to Marian Wood, president

of the Friends, during a press conference/awards ceremony at Edmond Town Hall.

"It is really an honor to present this award to the Friends of the Booth

Library for this delightful Sarah Booth Cookbook ," Ms Hunter said. "It

obviously has been a true labor of love.

"I think everyone that reads it knows this charming little book fulfills one

of the main goals of the Tabasco’ Community Cookbook Awards, and that is to

encourage the volunteers writing these books to preserve their local culinary

traditions and to share recipes which have been handed down through

generations."

A nationwide contest, the Community Cookbook Awards contest was open to

original cookbooks compiled and published in 1995 or 1996 by non-profit

organizations. Cookbooks were judged on title and theme, contribution to

regional culinary tradition, layout art, fundraising record and documented or

intended use of proceeds toward a community cause.

Recipes had to comprise at least 50 percent of the book. The Friends' book

contains 21 recipes, many of them sweet and "all perfectly suitable for tea

which is now enjoying a justifiably enthusiastic revival," according to the

cookbook's introduction.

In addition to the Special Merit Citation, First Selectman Bob Cascella

presented an official proclamation during the gathering and Caroline Stokes,

the Booth Library curator who unearthed Sarah Booth's notebook in the

library's vault, offered historical background on Sarah Booth. Sarah, the

grandmother of Newtown benefactress Mary Elizabeth Hawley, was married to Dr

Cyrenius H. Booth, namesake of Newtown's library.

Sarah Booth (1800-1864) died around the same time the first fundraising

cookbook was compiled. A legacy of the Civil War, fundraiser cookbooks were

first sold by ladies' societies to raise money for military casualties and

their families. Proceeds from sales of The Sarah Booth Cookbook will fund

materials for the children's reading room and computer software for the

reference room.

Culled from the late 18th and early 19th Century, the recipes in The Sarah

Booth Cookbook are "distant cousins" to those found in today's kitchen, says a

cookbook note.

In accepting the McIlhenny Company's award, Michele Grillo, who, along with

Carolyn Greene, spent countless hours deciphering the notes and old-fashioned

words of Sarah Booth's notes into the resulting recipes in The Sarah Booth

Cookbook , said she felt very proud of the finished product. While some of the

recipes called for the unfamiliar "Emptins" or "Pearlash," others were not

used because of the difficulty of finding some of the ingredients in today's

world.

"We had a tough time figuring out some of the recipes, and there were a few

that did not make it into the book," she confided, "like the recipe for Cow's

Head Pie...

"Stop & Shop does not sell cows' heads," she said.