Laughing Elephant

The first half of the twentieth century was a golden age for the recipe booklet.  Recipe booklets, or pamphlets, most commonly were made by a food manufacturer or kitchen appliance company and were given away as a premium to help cooks learn to use that product to best advantage.  Given that the recipes carried the brand, justified the purchase, and, if successful, encouraged repeat use of the product, great effort was made to make the best and tastiest recipes possible.  Additionally, after World War II, the quality and freshness of ingredients improved along with the reliability and accuracy of appliances and, most importantly, the housewife (as it was almost exclusively her domain at this time) had more wealth and leisure to cook new and better things.

Thus the recipe pamphlets of this era contain some of the finest pie recipes anywhere.  Pies seem somehow to be an especially American dish, hence the expression ‘as American apple pie’, they are reminiscent of a bygone age when they cooled on the kitchen windowsill and were always in danger of being stolen by hungry boys.  We have included all manner of pie recipes, fruit, nut chocolate and cream fillings, as well as a few pastry and piecrust recipes and tips.  Wherever possible we have striven to be faithful to the original recipe, in some cases when it seemed that the recipe was either wrong to begin with or that tastes had changed to such an extent that most would be disappointed with the result, we have corrected it, we hope you agree.