Vintage Cookbook Update: Ohio Apples and the Ohio Farm Bureau

“100 Good Apple Recipes: Use Ohio Apples,” Agricultural College Extension Service, Ohio State University, 1915.

Cookbooks like this one were used to distribute knowledge about the agricultural field. “The Cooperative Extension Service system got its start in 1862 when Congress passed the Morrill Act, which provided for a university in each state to provide education to citizens in the agricultural and mechanical fields. These colleges are known as ‘land-grant universities.’ The Ohio State University is Ohio's 1862 land-grant university” (Ohio State University). For more information on apples in America, I would recommend checking out this article on apples by The Food Timeline and this podcast episode by History Bites.

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“Farm Bureau Cook Book,” Ohio Farm Bureau. No date.

I think this cookbook may have been published sometime in the 1940s because it lists several recipes as “sugarless” or containing the word “victory” in the title. Rationing items like sugar was common in the United States in the 1940s due to World War II. According to the Food Timeline, “Rationing was introduced in the United States by the Office of Price Administration in 1942 as a way to equitably distribute diminishing food supplies.” The regulations on rationing sugar remained in effect from April 1942 to June 1947. A couple interesting articles I found on World War II food rationing were “WW2 Rations + Victory Gardens” from Savor Tooth Tiger and “Here’s How to Make ‘Victory Cake’ With a Recipe From the World War II Home Front” by Lily Rothman for TIME Magazine.

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