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Several of you had very old family recipes. Sonia Curtis of Milbridge sent a 100-year-old one. Gayle Crowley shared her grandmother's recipe.
JoAnn Brown contributed one from her Eastport great-grandmother Mattie. Greta Choquet in Bangor sent one from an old "Watkins' Hearthside Cookbook"
her mother gave her when she married in the 1950s. Christine Roberts from Belmont sent her grandmother's recipe; since her gram passed away 20 years
ago at age 101, that recipe reached well into the past. From Bangor, JoAnn Wick's recipe came from her stay-at-home mom who baked desserts for six children.
Cynthia Adams in Perry obtained her recipe in 1956 from her mother-in-law who acquired it from her mother. Ruth Thurston of Machias sent her mother-in-law's
recipe, a favorite of her husband's; the older Mrs. Thurston acquired it from an early Extension Service leader, Jean Dow.
I'm always impressed at how much recipe swapping goes on among friends, neighbors and co-workers. From Exeter, Pam Clark's recipe came
from a brother-in-law who got it in turn from Alice Stubbs of Charlestown. Pam Doiron in Bangor sent along a recipe from a former co-worker,
Gail Stubbs in Hermon. Cynthia Rump from Bangor picked up a recipe from her friend Vivian, saying, "They are the best." A high compliment indeed.
Then, like me, there are the inveterate clippers and copiers who find good-sounding things in cookbooks and newspapers. Jean Arbo cut
one recipe out of the Bangor Daily News in 1989, so it was probably one of Brownie Schrumpf's; she also sent one from a friend's mother-in-law
obtained fifty years ago. Sheila Meyer found hers in the Lewiston Daily Sun in the 1970s. Patricia Woolston in Manchester found her
recipe in an Eastern Star cookbook. Jean Fardelman got hers from an old 1950s-era McCall's cookbook.
Most recipes called for one cup of molasses, one cup of sugar, one cup of shortening, usually melted, four teaspoons of
baking soda, an egg and an average of 4-5 cups of flour. Ginger and cinnamon were the constant spice choices, and cloves sneaked into at
least half of the recipes. Several recipes suggested ½-cup of hot water for liquid, though sour milk had its adherents, and some called for
hot coffee. Sometimes the cookies were dropped, sometimes rolled lightly and cut.
Hazel Varisco from Stonington uses a recipe from the Cross Village cookbook when, she wrote, "I have time for these to chill and roll out."
Hearkening to the past are the instructions common in the later 1800s that I saw in some recipes saying to dissolve the baking soda in hot water.
A recipe from Irma Detour in Bangor specified this method, as did Lillian Mayo's from Dover-Foxcroft. Patricia Schreiner in Presque Isle
dissolves baking soda in hot coffee for hers. Cream of tartar with baking soda also is an old-fashioned way to raise cookies, and Elaine Lowell
in Prospect suggested Maine's own product, Bakewell Cream.
Mary Hawkins from Machias suggested "add-ins" like chopped walnuts, raisins or chopped crystallized ginger.
Jane Basely of Ellsworth, who used to bake molasses cookies for her sons when they still lived at home, wrote
that she sometimes used dark and light raisins. Some of us have to watch our calories and fats, so Pat Wilking in Eddington
recommended substituting a ½-cup of canola oil, plus ½-cup of applesauce for the cup of shortening. Of course, in early Maine, that
shortening would have been lard, and more recently a hydrogenated vegetable oil. I used part home-rendered lard from our own pigs and part butter.
Speaking of shortening, Pat Cokinis of Rockport cautioned us to add only enough flour to the other ingredients to make a
firm ball and then add the melted shortening after the flour. You can use that technique if you wish with the following recipe.
To ensure the cookie's softness, Trisha in Prospect adds a slice of bread to the cookie container overnight. She said, "I make these
every week for our musical jams at the senior center in Bucksport. They seem to like them very much."
Trish's recipe, is very similar, almost identical in fact, to several of those that you all offered.
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