Food and Fellowship

The Holiday Cooking recipe booklet published in 1983 featured families who entertained with lavish parties during the weeks from Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

Vivian Turner, who served as a president of the National Master Farm Homemakers Guild, shared tips for cooking the traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

Turner said she prepared everything in advance, except the turkey, giblet gravy and mashed potatoes which she made on the holiday morning. She shared her recipes for giblet gravy, dressing, scalloped oysters, whole cranberry sauce, quick spoon rolls and pumpkin pie with honey.

In the early 80s, Candi and Jim Donley invited friends into their home during the holidays as “a way of showing that we enjoy their company and are glad to have them as friends,” Jim Donley said. “Food is a universal friendship thing, and that’s what you have when friends get together.”

Candi Donley always served cornmeal icebox rolls. The recipe belonged to her mother, Mae Williams, who owned a Morehead restaurant for many years. Jim Donley’s homemade jellies were served with the rolls.

Sugar and Tom Slabaugh held an annual Christmas Eve open house and the menu included country ham pate on buttermilk biscuits, shrimp mold, and cinnamon meringue coffee ring.

When guests left the farm home of Betty and Larry Overly in Bourbon County after a New Year’s Eve party, they took with them Chinese fortune cookies containing a good wish composed by the hostess. “I started them as a joke, but everyone liked them so much they now insist on them, so I work on the little messages throughout the year,” Betty Overly said in 1983.

Annette Mayer’s menu for Hanukkah was featured with recipes for potato latkes, individual candle salad, fruited flank steak, doughnuts, and menorah fruit salad. Betty Carter, a well-known cookie baker, shared recipes for her daughters’ favorites.
Here are some of their recipes.

Vivian Turner’s scalloped oysters

Butter or margarine
Soda crackers, crushed
2 pints fresh oysters
Salt and pepper
Milk
Rub bottom of baking dish with butter. Sprinkle with crackers to cover bottom of dish. Arrange 1 pint of oysters over crumbs. Dot with butter. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Make another layer of crumbs. Cover with the remaining pint of oysters, topping with final layer of crackers. Dot with butter. Dribble enough whole milk over the casserole to make it moist but not soupy. Bake at 375 degrees until bubbly and light brown.

Candi Donley’s cornmeal icebox rolls

2 cups milk
1/2 cup shortening, plus 1 tablespoon
1/2 cup white cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cake yeast
1/2 cup warm water
2 eggs
4 cups flour
Scald milk; add 1/2 cup shortening, cornmeal, sugar and salt. Let cool. Dissolve 1 cake yeast in warm water. Beat eggs. Add yeast mixture and eggs to cornmeal mush. Mix, and stir in 4 cups flour. You may let rise, but it isn’t necessary. Brush top with melted shortening. Cover loosely and place in refrigerator. Shape into rolls. Let rise. Bake in a 400-degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Sugar Slabaugh’s country ham pate

1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 pound country ham, finely ground
Combine ingredients. Spread on hot homemade biscuits and serve warm.

Betty Overly’s fortune cookies

1/4 cup, plus 2 tablespoons, softened butter
1/4 cup, plus 2 tablespoons, sugar
2 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
Grease and flour cookie sheet. Draw 3-inch circles on flour, leaving 1/2 inch in between. Combine butter, sugar, egg whites and extract. Drop a round tablespoon of mixture into each circle. Spread thin with a knife. Bake at 400 degrees for 4 minutes until edges are slightly brown. Loosen cookies from sheet, working quickly. Place folded piece of paper with fortune on cookie, and fold in half. Place cookies in muffin tin to harden. Work with about six cookies at a time. Makes about 30 cookies.

Annette Mayer’s potato latkes

3 large potatoes
Small onion
2 eggs
2 tablespoons flour or matzo meal
1 teaspoon salt
Grate potatoes into a large bowl. Grate onion over potatoes. Add eggs, flour and salt. Drain off excess liquid. Drop by spoonfuls into a well-oiled frying pan. Fry on both sides in hot oil. Serve with applesauce or sour cream.

Betty Carter’s Christmas butter cookies

1 cup butter
2/3 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond flavoring
Chopped pecans
Beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg yolks. Add flour and flavoring. Mix well. Form into a log and roll in chopped pecans. Slice and place on a cookie sheet. Bake in a 375-degree oven for 10 to 12 minutes.