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January 21, 1939

Mr. Kenneth L. Roberts Kennebunkport, Maine

Dear Mr. Roberts;-

Here is the cookery list. I am afraid it will be as disappointing to you as it is to me. I have been surprised as well as disappointed to find how relatively little Maine authors (in so far as I have been able to refer to them) have to say about Maine cookery. Really, you are the only author, so far as I know, who has done justice to the Noble Art as practiced in this state. People in Maine books are more or less interested in eating but the authors don't go into the subject of cookery as they should. Perhaps if I had time to do Holman Day's novels l might find some tidbits, but the ones l glanced through had little to offer so I read only the three collections of verse. Arthur Staples has often burst forth into a eulogy of Maine cookery, or some phase of it, but as comparatively few of the Just Talks have been collected into books I haven't located many of his food essays.

I didn't have much luck in locating old cook-books-local compilations of favorite recipes. Perhaps they would not interest you but I think I shall continue to search for them because I think a list of them might be amusing to have.

I ran through our file of old Maine Farmer's Almanacs since l vaguely recalled they had recipes, but most of the "recipes" to be medical concoctions. I found a recipe for green tomato pie, which I am sending to you.

Although Whitings Changing New England is sectional rather than state what he says about food is too applicable to Maine to be overlooked, although of course he is not a Maine author. The same applies to Della Lutes mouth-watering masterpiece, The Country Kitchen. I am sure that all of her delicious food (with the exception of stewed oysters) had its origins in Maine. So many of the Michigan pioneers moved west with the lumber jacks and so had roots in Maine.

I shall continue to watch for descriptions of Maine cookery. I am sorry to send so poor a list.

Very truly yours

{signed) MCF