Applehood & Motherpie
Funny What Brings You Back
Growing up in Buffalo in the 70s and 80s meant a few things.
No place else in the world will ever make chicken wings to your satisfaction
The Blizzard of ‘77. (If you lived there, you know.)
That look of sadness you share with other western New Yorkers whenever the initials O and J are mentioned.
But mostly, and most importantly, the collective sigh of nostalgia over Applehood & Motherpie.
“Applehood & Motherpie: Handpicked Recipes from Upstate New York” was a three-ring binder style recipe book published by the Junior League of Rochester in 1981. Over the course of the next few months, the book sold 30,000 copies. That’s A LOT for a regional cookbook. Every kitchen I walked into in the early 80s had one - mine, my substitute mom, my aunts, my next door neighbor, all my friends.
The Junior League is still around by the way. The book is still in print and the Junior League still sells it on their website for $17.99, only five bucks more than when it was originally published. It is, the website tells us, an award winning local cookbook and one of the most popular local cookbooks in the country. I believe it.
I bring this up because recently, a copy of the book turned up in our library’s donation bin, a little haggard and little torn up and well used - a condition not quite up to snuff enough for us to put on our shelves. But good enough for me to take home and continue the tradition, 300 miles away, of the book being in my kitchen.
A & M is a simple book by the way, donated recipes, no frills, the name of the cook under each, designed like little pull out cards that you can take with you when you’re making the meal. Fish. Chicken. Bread. Desserts. An index. Binder flaps to tuck in your own recipes. Nothing fancy. Practical. Just like Western New York.
I am not a cook. I mean I can survive on my own. I can keep people alive if I have to cook. My wife is the brilliant, creative chef and cook. (I can’t even recall the last time she made something I didn’t love eating.) So the book - by design - has little practical meaning for me, but it does make me feel better, it puts in into a memory state of my kitchen growing up. Of my mom’s grilled cheese sandwiches and my dad’s casseroles.
So, it’ll go into the collection and maybe Little Bean and I will try our hand at one of the recipes. Nothing too complicated. Nothing beyond my reach. But just enough to bring me back.
Do you recall a recipe or dish from your youth that makes you smile? Tell us about it!
I still have (and use!) my mother’s Parents Magazine cookbook from the 1950s. The binding is held together with masking tape, the pages are brown and crumbly from age and use—but there is no way I’m ever getting rid of it.
So funny, we didn't have that book growing up in WNY! But I *do* remember my mom's apple pie, which she learned from her years with the 4-H. To this day, I rate all apple pies by how closely they cleave to Mom's. ❤️🥧