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Molly Gavin's own cookbook

Chapter 2: FOREWORD
By Molly Gavin
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About This Book

A comprehensive domestic cookbook compiled with Catholic households in mind, this volume organizes recipes, menus, and kitchen guidance into practical sections—breads, beverages, cakes, candies, cereals, cheeses, soups, vegetables, meats, fish, poultry, preserves, sauces, desserts, and more—alongside chapters on utensils, table etiquette, kitchen economy, fasting and abstaining, and a cook’s dictionary. It emphasizes clear measurements, temperature control, and step-by-step methods, and includes menu suggestions, time- and cost-saving hints, and adaptations for religious dietary observance. The layout is designed for usability by busy cooks and includes an alphabetical index for quick reference.

Copyright 1927
THE GRIMES COMPANY

FOREWORD

This is perhaps the first complete cookbook of its kind ever published. There are many others intended for the general public; but, as far as I have been able to determine, this is the first compiled primarily for Catholic women.

In assembling the cooking information that follows I had Catholic women in mind principally for the reason that they have to consider fast and abstinence regulations which our non-Catholic sisters naturally do not observe. Kitchen problems of Catholic women differ in many respects from the problems of women outside the Church. This fact has been so impressed upon me in recent years by hundreds of mothers, priests’ housekeepers and nuns who have been writing to me for cooking advice that I have decided to be of greater assistance to them, if possible. When I suggested a complete cookbook thousands of these women assured me it was exactly what they wanted. Other thousands had previously asked for detailed help in permanent form.

This cookbook is the answer to their requests. Herein I am giving to them a collection of accurate, practical, and inexpensive recipes. With the cooperation of the publishers these have been printed in convenient form in a volume that will open easily and lay flat so that the cook may follow the table of ingredients and instructions without experiencing the usual cookbook difficulty of exasperatingly fumbling to keep the page she wants in place while her hands are full of dough. Another feature is that more than 300 pages of recipes have been arranged in actually half that number—a convenience and saving which I believe will meet with the favor of my readers.

This book is complete in itself, but as in every other phase of life, something new is always developing, so it is with cooking. New short cuts are being constantly devised, new savings are being hit upon. To keep in touch with the latest in cooking, may I suggest in conclusion that my readers follow the cooking columns which I conduct in the leading Catholic newspapers and magazines? Through these columns I am able to provide a direct and personal advice service to women who desire personal help with their kitchen problems.

Molly Gavin.