[Lee Jessie Lanphere]

Miz Jessie’s Gatherin’ of Old, Odd, Unusual Receipts.[Compiled by Miz (Lee) Jessie Lanphere.]

Bull Shoals, Arkansas: The author, circa 1970.

Octavo-size booklet (22.5 x 15.5 cm.), [vi], 42, [ii] pages. Illustrated. Photo-reproduction of typescript. “Index” is actually a table of contents. Title from cover. Compiler and place of publication from prefatory note on page [i]. Date of publication estimated from newspaper notices circulating in 1971. ~ Evident FIRST EDITION. A cookbook offering recipes that “yer Maw or Grannie used to whop up,” from the Ozark Plateau region of north-central Arkansas. With some one hundred twenty entries, including: Sassafras Tea, Peanut Soup, Corn Pone, Flat Dumplings, Spiced Grunts, Skillet Catfish, Coon, Skunk, Rattle Snake, Poke Sallet, Hoppin’ John, Leather Britches (beans dried in their pods and then reconstituted), Corn Cob Jelly, Sheepshire (i.e., Oxalis) Jelly, Sweet ‘Tater Jelly, Chokecherry Jelly, Paw Paw Cookies, Mulberry Pie, Sheep Sorrel Pie, Farkleberry Pie. ~ Porch Ice Cream is homemade ice cream that is kept on the porch until it freezes. But a dose such as this of understated humor cannot conceal the author’s rudimentary deftness and seriousness of purpose – even when the hee-haw language sometimes threatens to tumble into the ditch of hayseed self-parody (“The next time your wrong about something er other and have to eat crow, try cookin ut furst”). Details regarding her biography are elusive. ~ Bull Shoals is a small city in Marion County, constructed by developers following the completion of a massive gravity dam project on the White River, and incorporated in 1954. Today it is perhaps best known for its Hillbilly Chili Cookoff competition held annually in October. ~ Stapled in publisher’s pink wrappers, lettered in black; tape repair to staples on spine; otherwise very good. Scarce. [OCLC locates two copies; not in Cagle].

Price: $20.00