The following excerpt is from an article posted in the July 5, 2012 edition of BangorDailyNews.com:
Taste the Civil War as the Bangor Museum and History Center unveils “The Bangor Sanitary Fair Cookbook Bangor 1864.”
Established in 1862, “the Bangor Sanitary Commission … sent a lot of supplies to the [Maine] soldiers,” said BMHC Executive Director Jennifer Pictou. “They made blankets. They made towels, quilts. They sent wine, brandy, whiskey — always very important in war — jellies, and pickles, things that would make the trip” to Virginia or other southern states where Maine units were stationed.
According to Pictou, “the Bangor Sanitary Commission also held fundraisers” to purchase supplies needed by Maine soldiers. During a three-day Ladies’ Fair held in December 1864, the Bangor Sanitary Commission raised $15,000, “equivalent to about $220,000 today,” Pictou said.
Throughout the three days “they had dinners. They had items for auction. And they sold food. There was a lot of food, a lot of jellies, a lot of cakes, a lot of creams, a lot of different types of foods,” she said.
One unidentified woman painstakingly “wrote down all of the recipes that were sold at the Sanitary [Commission] fair. The collection of recipes found its way into a little book that is about 4 inches long by about 6 inches high. The opening page says, ‘Sanitary Fair Cookbook Bangor 1864,’” Pictou said.
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Before the BMHC could publish the 1864 cookbook, Laurel McFarland volunteered to “update it for the modern cook.” She represents the Bangor-based Cheryl Wixson’s Kitchen.
“A lot of the recipes were interesting because they were missing a lot of things that are found in traditional recipes today,” McFarland said.
“They don’t tell you the temperature to put the oven at, because it was a wood stove; there wasn’t a temperature,” she explained. “They don’t tell you a [cooking] time, because it depends on how hot your oven is; you just cook things until they’re done.”
Spending “a little over a month” recreating the book’s 99 recipes, McFarland “tested them and made sure the amounts made sense. It was interesting.”
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Each “The Bangor Sanitary Fair Cookbook Bangor 1864” costs $12.00 apiece. The BMHC is also selling a commemorative bamboo baking spoon at $4 apiece, but the cookbook and spoon can be purchased together for $15.00.
To place an order, call the BMHC at (207) 942-1900 or email biz@bangormuseum.org.
