Auction: Immigrant recipe cookbook

Subject: Auction: Immigrant recipe cookbook
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 11:02 PM

I've just added a cookbook to the auction. I've threatened to send it for a while now, and I finally got to it. I helped Tom Bernardin with the revisions and digitization of this book last year, and in the process, fell in love with it all over again. Tom and I worked at Ellis Island as national park service rangers in the late 1970s, and when you work at a place with such a rich history, it gets into your blood. Tom decided to explore the story of immigration through family recipes still popular, several generations after immigration.

I don't like auctions that go for a long time, so this will run for 7 days. A week plenty of time, as long as people know that the auction is going on. Consider yourselves notified, and the winner can have it in time for the holidays.

If you have any questions about this book, ask away. I've sent an extra image to Pene Azul that I hope he can put up. It's a scan of a spread of pages with representative stories and recipes. I would have listed the countries included except there are an awful lot of them.

This book has 268 pages, a thorough introduction to the immigrant experience at Ellis Island in the height of it's use as an immigrant processing station, and lots and lots of great recipes. Some are artifacts--the ingredients are unobtainable or so obscure as to be unavailable. But many more of them are as great today as they were 100 years ago when families carried them through the inspection process at Ellis.

SRS

Subject: RE: Auction: Immigrant recipe cookbook
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Sep 05 - 11:36 PM

CABBAGE - ONIONS and Pig BUTT

Eat them UP Yummmm

Sincerest appologies to Barnes and Barnes

Subject: RE: Auction: Immigrant recipe cookbook
From: Sorcha
Date: 24 Sep 05 - 12:05 AM

Table of contents?

Subject: RE: Auction: Immigrant recipe cookbook
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Sep 05 - 12:08 AM

I have the working copy of the book on disk in WordPerfect--I'll have to install WordPerfect on this machine and open it up. Soon (better to install a program than retype it--who knows the country names I might come up with in my typos!)

SRS

Subject: RE: Auction: Immigrant recipe cookbook
From: Sorcha
Date: 24 Sep 05 - 12:21 AM

Ta! Can never have too many cookbooks!

Subject: RE: Auction: Immigrant recipe cookbook
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Sep 05 - 12:37 AM

This is the general list of contents. I can't find the list with the countries--I'll type it in tomorrow:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 6.

THE STORY OF ELLIS ISLAND 9.

THE ELLIS ISLAND FERRY 19.

CHRONOLOGY 20.

FOOD AT ELLIS ISLAND2 4.

THE RECIPES: (alphabetical listing of countries and pages) 33.

IMMIGRANT PORTRAITS 216.

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT 220.

IMMIGRANT FOOD MEMORIES 221.

TIPS ON PRESERVING A FAMILY RECIPE 226.

TIPS ON TRACING YOUR FAMILY ROOTS 230.

MAJOR ETHNIC ORGANIZATION 236.

ELLIS ISLAND TODAY 238.

PLANNING YOUR TRIP TO ELLIS ISLAND
AND THE STATUE OF LIBERTY   243.

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE PRESERVATION OF
ELLI ISLAND   246.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 250.

INDEX TO RECIPES 254.

INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS 262.

FOR FURTHER READING 265.

Subject: RE: Auction: Immigrant recipe cookbook
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Sep 05 - 09:27 PM

I'm hoping Pene Azul will stick another image on the auction page so you can see a couple of representative stories and recipes that I scanned. I haven't heard back from him--do you suppose he has a life and is taking the weekend off? :)

SRS

Subject: RE: Auction: Immigrant recipe cookbook
From: Sorcha
Date: 24 Sep 05 - 09:56 PM

Oh, of course not. Don't be silly.

Subject: RE: Auction: Immigrant recipe cookbook REDUX
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Oct 05 - 10:15 PM

I put another copy of the Ellis Island Immigrant Cookbook in the auction. This time I'm not trying to split the profit, I'll just pay Tom for the base cost of the book and donate all of the auction proceeds to Mudcat. I pay the postage. That's what I ended up doing the first time when Gnu won--$51 went straight to Max. (Thanks, Gary!)

I put a very large file in the photo link this time. If you visit the earlier closed auction you can see the cover, but with this offering you can read two facing pages of the book itself. One recipe is a simple Irish recipe for Jersey Clam Pie, the other is the Bonsignore's Italian Sausage recipe, cherished by a family that sold their sausage commercially. The recipes are listed alphabetically by country, so this is why you have Ireland and Italy next to each other. Read these pages and imagine a book filled with dozens of personal stories about favorite family foods, and you'll have a hard time resisting this auction item!

Happy bidding and happy eating!

SRS

Subject: RE: Auction: Immigrant recipe cookbook
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Oct 05 - 09:12 AM

Looks like this is going to be another signed copy!

Subject: RE: Auction: Immigrant recipe cookbook
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 10:56 AM

page 131

From Filomena Commisso of West Babylon, New York:

My mom doesn't usually cook with measurements. She cooks with "a pinch of this and a pinch of that." She has given this recipe to her friends, but they still love hers the best. Mom came here from Calabria, Italy, in the 1950s.


Filomena's Stuffed Eggplant

8 Italian eggplants
breadcrumbs, enough to mix with rest of mixture
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
3-4 springs fresh parsley, chopped
5 leaves of fresh basil, chopped
3 eggs
1 lb chopped meat
1/2 cup pecorino romano grated cheese
olive oil

Boil eggplant until cooked. Remove eggplants from water, drain, then peel. Set eggplant skins aside. In another bowl, mix pulp of eggplants together with all of the above ingredients. Take the eggplant skins and stuff with this mixture. Make sure olive oil is hot enough before frying the stuffed eggplants (or else they will stick to the pan). If there is any leftover mixture, make hamburger patties and fry in olive oil without their skins. After they are cooked, top with tomato sauce and sprinkle grated cheese on top. Serve hot.

____

More tempting recipes to follow. . .