If you’re looking for a recipe today, chances are you’re going to search for one online. But before the rise of the internet, newspapers were a common place to find new recipes, featuring the latest ingredients on the market.
Co-authors Jane Conway and Randi Ramsden were working at the Wisconsin Historical Society, when these old newspaper recipes inspired them to write their own cookbook. Extra! Extra! Eat All About It!: Culinary Curiosities From Historic Wisconsin Newspapers features recipes they collected, alongside historical anecdotes about how they came to be.
One of the biggest challenges of writing the book was translating the recipes.
Ramsden explains, "There was a lot more research involved than we thought. We thought, 'Let's just cook it, how hard can it be?' But then you look at the ingredients, or how they would have prepared this dish, or why would they have prepared this dish?"
"There was a lot of just assumed knowledge that these newspapers thought that readers had interpreting these recipes, that we've just lost by now," Conway adds.
To better understand what kinds of ingredients and devices would have been accessible to readers, Conway and Ramsden turned to the other pages in the newspaper to see what was being advertised.
Conway says, "If we were wondering what kind of kitchen gadget they might've been using... we'd see what advertisements were in the newspaper... and we did the same for ingredients."
The book features a variety of recipes, some familiar and some more unusual, like the "Swimming Island" recipe originally published in 1910 in the Milwaukee-based German-language newspaper, Der Sonntagsbote. Conway and Ramsden say the egg-based dessert is one of their favorites.
Essentially, it’s a hard boiled egg, coated in pancake batter and deep fried, which is then placed in a wine sauce. Listen in to hear how producers Joy Powers and Xcaret Nuñez prepared and tasted their own Swimming Islands.
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