True and Tried Recipes. Collected by The Ladies of the Baptist Church, Lafayette, Ala.
Lafayette, Ala. The Church, 1921.
Octavo (22.5 x 15 cm.), 44, [xvi] pages. Advertisements. Title from cover. Evident FIRST EDITION. A church cookbook, with more than 250 recipes, many attributed. Most entries adhere to the reliable conventions promised by the title, but there are also such glimpses of the geography as Pecan Cake (requiring two and a quarter pounds of pecans), a custardy Burnt Almond Cream, Banana Fritters, and Squash Cakes. ~ Though not the earliest congregations in Alabama, the so-called Primitive Baptists – the “church of the people” who eschewed hierarchy and claimed personal experience of the spirit as ultimate authority – dominated among the Christian communities by the middle of the nineteenth century. Since the decade when True and Tried Recipes appeared, the First Baptist Church of Lafayette (in Chambers County, a stone’s throw from the Georgia border) has been remembered as a bastion of the Southern Convention, the spiritual home of several Alabamians who served as representatives of their state in Washington, not the least of whom was Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black (1886-1971). ~ Stapled in brown wrappers, titled in black. Owner’s name in pencil on cover: “Bess.” One recipe corrected in ink. Near fine. Unrecorded. [OCLC locates no copies; not in Brown, Cagle, or Cather].
Price: $500.00