Vinalhaven Historical Society, 2007
Cooking Amidst the Quarries
The name “Hurricane Island” conjures up granite, outdoor education and an abandoned community. I dare say not many think of Date Bars, Sponge Cake, or Four Minute Fudge. In fact, when Dorothy Simpson wrote in her Maine Islands in Story and Legend, “Hurricane’s story is simply granite and nothing else,” she didn’t have a clue how wrong she would prove to be. Wherever people live they must eat, and finally a piece Hurricane Island’s food history has appeared.
Vinalhaven Historical Society has printed a cluster of recipes discovered in a Hurricane Island Granite Company ledger in which were kept accounts for granite cut for the Field Building in Chicago. Nellie Philbrook, who lived on Hurricane while her husband, Ansel, worked for the granite company in the first decade and a half of the 1900s, jotted recipes, frugally enough, in blank spaces of the ledger. The cookbook’s editors surmise that the ledger was the nearest thing at hand when Nellie heard a recipe given over the short wave radio from WNAC in Boston. Very likely indeed; three recipes are entitled Radio: Radio CNRA Cookies, Radio Homemaker Jelly Cookies, and Radio Pudding. And her Raisin Oatmeal Cookies has a side note of “WNAC.”
It is not terribly unusual, but always a delightful surprise to discover handwritten recipes in unlikely places. Over the years, I have seen them in seafarers’ log books, on the blank sides of published reports, in account books, on the flyleaves of books, and on pieces of papers used as bookmarks in books having nothing to do with cookery at all. It appears that Nellie took this ledger and her recipes with her back to Vinalhaven when she and her family returned there in 1914, for some of the recipes, like 2 Minute Frosting, became popular in the later 1920s and early 1930s. She may very well have continued to use the ledger as a cookbook.
Nellie’s handwritten recipes, typically enough, run heavily to baked goods and desserts. After all, Nellie Philbrook could probably build a chowder or cook up a stew with her eyes closed. The less-often-made Thanksgiving Pudding, however, needed the prompt of an ingredients list. Typically, too, Nellie writes in recipes she collected from neighbors and friends: Rose’s Applesauce Cake, Sylvie’s Tip Top Cake, Mable’s Angel Cake.
Among the transcribed recipes the historical society has interleaved marvelous photographs and the history of Hurricane Island, the granite industry, and its people. Hurricane’s population included Italian stone cutters, and sure enough, Nellie’s recipes show at least one conversation with an Italian homemaker: on page 95 is a recipe for “Resota,” though the addition of a half a can of tomato soup almost disguises what we know as risotto.
The spiral bound book has both a history and recipe index and a bibliography. The 104 pages are images of the ledger over which the recipes and text are printed. q
All proceeds benefit the Vinalhaven Historical Society. Price is $25 (includes Maine sales tax), plus $2.00, shipping & handling ($1.00 for each additional book.) For out of state orders the price is $23.80. Send a check to V.H.S., P.O. Box 339, Vinalhaven, ME 04863. For more information call 207-863-4410 or email VHHISSOC@verizon.net.