Aunt Bessies Wood Stove Cookbook

Someone once stated that history has a way of repeating itself and, indeed, it has in many ways. The tools and skills that accompanied our ancestors into this century have long since disappeared into museums, antique collections and decorations at Disneyland or some unique restaurant. As electric power became universal, dependence switched to “modern” appliances with incentives such as “The more you use, the cheaper it is.” When in 1950 the mother of this publisher replaced her wood cook stove with a new electric range, the REA gave her an electric blanket as a reward for using more electric power!

The manufacturing of wood stoves dwindled to a bare existence until the last few years when the energy situation in America created a new demand. Today, wood stoves for both heating and cooking are available in greater variety and quality than ever before. While recreating the stoves was easy, recreating the skills to use them was another problem.

Today’s publishing world is inundated by cookbooks of every imaginable facet. Nearly all recipes contain such instructions as pre-heat oven to 375 degrees, set timer to cook for forty-five minutes, etc. Yesterday’s cook stoves had such automatic controls to the extent that Model T Fords had cruise control.

Cooks of yesteryear depended on cooking skills lost to today’s “push button” society. To help restore lost skills, Desert Publications has reproduced an actual cookbook that came with Home Comfort Cook stoves in 1915. Titled Aunt Bessie’s Wood Stove Cookbook, it is so named in memory of the publisher’s Aunt Bessie Parsons who used this same cookbook at the time in history when hard work, perseverance and economy were not only necessities, but virtues. May this cook book help restore those qualities.

Everett Moore