Maine Rebekahs have new version of popular community cookbook

The Maine Rebekahs have done it again. Some time ago, you may recall, I wrote that there was another Rebekah cookbook in the offing, and now it is available. This is one of Maine’s longest-standing series of community cookbooks, published and updated all through the 1900s and now into the 21st century, too, by the lodge affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Much of their fundraising effort goes to support a variety of charities here in Maine and abroad, including the Odd Fellows’ and Rebekahs’ Home of Maine, a nonprofit residential care and nursing facility in Auburn pictured on the cover the newest cookbook.

One charming feature of the new cookbook, titled “Maine Rebekah’s Cookbook 1894-2006,” is the first section, dedicated to the past presidents of the Rebekahs, beginning with Sarah A. Weymouth, who was president from 1894 to 1895, and ending with Patricia Grass, president from 2005 to 2006. Each president is represented by a recipe from her kitchen as published in a previous Rebekah’s cookbook. Sarah Weymouth’s lemon pie leads off from the 1924 book, and Patricia Grass submitted two new recipes, one for a simple microwaved haddock dish and the other for a meatball sauce.

The book is a stroll through Maine’s past 80 years or so of culinary history, though some of the recipes from the 1924 book have roots in the late 1800s – brown bread, doughnuts and honeycomb pudding among others. The balance of the cookbook has chapters for breads and rolls, cakes, cookies, candies, vegetables, main dishes, soup and salad, all the usual, and within each chapter are recipes from each of the previous cookbooks. There are main dishes such as a lamb casserole, scalloped clams, and pepper steak; preserve recipes such as pickled beets and green tomato jam; and desserts from old-fashioned Indian pudding to fluffy concoctions made with Jell-O and Cool Whip.

In the past presidents chapter, the hermits recipe from Alice G. Priest McNeil, whose presidential term was 1909 through 1910, caught my eye. It has been years since I made or even ate a hermit, and I thought I would give it a try. Written in an earlier style, Alice provided no mixing instructions, but she knew most of the readers of the 1924 cookbook probably had made hermits before or had seen their mothers make them. An old Fanny Farmer cookbook filled in the details for me when I double-checked for baking temperature and time. Alice’s recipe was for dropped cookies, but hermits can be baked in a sheet and cut into bars, which is what I decided to do.

Alice had a light hand with spices, and in the recipe below, I have doubled up on the quantities. The molasses puts us in mind of gingerbread, and the raisins are a welcome nugget to bite into. If you want to make drop cookies, use a little less flour, by a quarter cup or so. I used a 10-by-15-inch baking pan with a half-inch-tall rim, a jellyroll pan, I guess, but you can use two smaller baking pans or whatever you have. You may have to adjust the baking time a little if you make them thicker.

If you want to acquire this new Rebekah cookbook, send your mailing address and a check for $17.75 ($15 for the book, $2.75 for shipping and handling) payable to Rebekah’s Assembly of Maine and mail to Helen Witham, 66 High St., Oakland, ME 04963-5008.

Hermits

Yields 36-48 bars

2 3/4 cups of flour (21/2 cups if making drop cookies)

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup butter or shortening

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup molasses

1/2 cup cold water

1/2 cup finely chopped nut meats (walnuts, pecans)

1/2 cup raisins

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease your baking pan. Sift together the dry ingredients and set aside. Cream together the butter and sugar, beat in the egg and molasses, then add the sifted dry ingredients alternately with the water, beat to make a smooth batter. Fold in the nuts and raisins. Spread in the pan or drop by teaspoonfuls on a baking sheet. Bake hermits for 20 minutes if in a large sheet, or for about fifteen if in cookie form. Cut to a size you prefer.

Tidbits: Here is something you will want to know about, especially if you are a cook with a great apple recipe and an urge to compete. An Old Fashioned Applefest with a Tasting Bee will take place 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, at the Page Farm and Home Museum on the University of Maine campus in Orono. Cooks who would like to enter a recipe in the tasting bee should bring the recipe, fully prepared, by noon, along with two copies of the recipe.

This event will be a taste test, rather than a judged competition, and winners will be chosen by votes of the taste-testers who attend the competition. Voting will close by 1:30, and winners will be announced at 2:30. There will be prizes in each category (appetizer, main dish, dessert, etc.) and a special prize for the winning junior chef (under 18). For more information, call the Page Farm and Home Museum at 581-2871. Good luck, and you may very well see a winning recipe right here.