From the Des Moines Register's Iowa Boy
"The result is a wonderful, colorful, 512-page "Madison County
Cookbook with Stories & Traditions" ... You'll love the book's
recipes from Madison County people, like the ones for pie and pudding from
parishioners Shirley and Bud Bittinger, who happen to make pies for the
North Side Cafe in Winterset; apple receipts from sisters Elma and Irenee
Tracy and their brother Dick Tracy, who own the farm south of Winterset
where Quaker farmer Jesse Hiatt developed the Delicious apple; and instructions
on how to cook Madison County rattlesnake by Ed Jensen, who used to hunt
them here.
From the Los Angeles Times
It's a delightful collection, rich in warmth and tradition. You step for
a moment into other people's lives as you read, "Grandma always made
fudge for Christmas" or "My mother made sugar kuchen often, but
it was a must at Christmas time" or "I triple this recipe for
my family every holiday. I even have to hid these [butterhorn rolls] in
order to have them for dinner!"
From the Chicago Tribune by William Rice
Long before Meryl Streep put on an apron for her role in the film "The
Bridges of Madison County" Iowa farm women were making food for family
and festivals. A rich sampling of the regional cuisine, more the 500 recipes,
along with "a patchwork of anecdotes, stories and traditions."
From the Chicago Sun Times by Sharon Sanders
The book is well peppered with "recollections" of holidays, amcedotes
and community happenings. Perhaps the most wistful is Martha Street's essay
recalling the childhood excitement of cooking for threshing days. "A
farm wife's reputation as a good cook depended upon this (threshing day)
meal! There was competion among the wives in the threshing ring, and any
wife who had not been able to help with a meal was given a detailed report
from her husband of what others served."
From Orange County(California) Register by Amy Wilson
I have had the distinct experience of eating in Madison County,Iowa.
And no, it wasn't the stuff that Clint brought in from Des Moines for the
movie crew. No, I have eaten at the Northside Cafe where Robert Kinkaid
dine among the morally confined I have supped mightily at the bowling alley
and bar. And yes, I have wished for a 7-eleven burrito as I sat in front
of the farmhouse where Kinkaid and Francesca Johnson did the adulterous
deed.
That is not to say I wouldn't have minded splitting a fried chicken
dinner under a bridge with the weathered Kinkdaid. It is rather to indicate
that a cookbook or two out of Madison County did not come with high expectations.
Not that the cookbooks had to move me to tears and make me want to
leave my children a revelatory letter to be opened after I die. I just
wanted the cookbooks to be real.
"The Madison County Cookbook," compiled by members of
the St. Joseph Catholic Church of Winterset--a kind of amalgamation of potluck
supper recipes and sweet stories plainly told--meets the test. Except for
the opening note and recipe from Georgia Waller,wife of the author who wrought
all this in this place, the book is glorious free of literary references,
fictitious liaisons and adjectives out of control.
Instead,it is like every church cookbook you ever owned--filled
with
recipes for Apple-Bacon Salad, Lime Pickles and Norm's Cake. But this one
is sprinkled with remembrances from people who live in and love Madison
County, not because it is famous but because it is home.
Here, you'll find out that Winterset and the county in which it
rests is also the home of the Delicious apple and John Wayne, and how the
people there are more proud of the former than the latter. here, you've
got somone writing about her youth in an orphanage, someone else telling
about Sparky the Christmas Dog and an exclamation-point happy someone else
joyfully reliving the time a Japanese television crew won the Skillet Throwing
Contest in Macksburg.
The recipes are delightful, if not as imaginative. What they lack
in precision- "bake until done"--they make up for in sheer unpretentiousness--when
was the last time you cooked with oleo?....