Book Report for Oct. 8. 2009

• By CHERAMIE SONNIER
• Advocate Food writer
• Published: Oct 8, 2009

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The cookbook that your grandmother and your mother cooked with, the one that every Baton Rouge area bride is given, is celebrating its golden anniversary.

That’s right. “River Road Recipes,” America’s best-selling community cookbook, is 50 years old.

The Junior League of Baton Rouge, which touts its cookbook as “the textbook of Louisiana cuisine,” has marked the milepost with a limited edition reprint of the original cookbook first published in September 1959.

The special edition has a metallic gold, wipe-clean hardcover with hidden spiral binding. It includes all the original recipes in larger size print, along with some modern equivalents of original ingredients.

That includes substitutions for no longer available ingredients in two of the book’s most popular recipes, Spinach Madeleine and Garlic Cheese Grits.

Those two dishes, along with Sensation Salad, Southern Biscuits, Chicken in Wine and Bananas Foster — all recipes found in “River Road Recipes” — were on the menu for a special 50th anniversary luncheon Sept. 23 at the City Club of Baton Rouge. The event was held to honor members of the original Junior League development and cookbook steering committees of 1957, 1958 and 1959.

Emily Robinson, who headed the 1958-1959 20-member cookbook committee, told the luncheon guests that the original “River Road Recipes” cookbook actually was the local League’s second cookbook. The first, “Bon Appétit,” was published in 1945.

She said the Junior League had been holding follies at Baton Rouge High School to raise money for community projects. But, members “had just selected the Louisiana Arts and Science Center and Baton Rouge Speech and Hearing Foundation to support,” so an additional fund-raising effort was needed. The 1957 development committee recommended publishing a new cookbook rather than revising “Bon Appétit.”

The group’s financial advisers and bankers recommended against the cookbook project, Robinson recalled.

“Every member was asked to submit three recipes,” she said. “We also got recipes from people citywide. Eight hundred recipes were submitted and tested. We wonder how we did that. Our husbands and children were great testers. And, in those days, we had refreshments before all general meetings, and we tested recipes then.”

Gulf States Utilities home economists checked every recipe, she said, and in late 1958 a contest was held to name the book. Ann Wilbert Arbour submitted “River Road Recipes.” The final book contains 650 recipes, including a section on “How Men Cook.”

Donna Saurage, who chaired the committee for “River Road Recipes II: A Second Helping,” offered luncheon guests five “River Road Recipes” legacies handed down to the community and to Junior League members: “Really good Louisiana cooking, produce only the very best, service to the community, sound business practices and having fun while doing something meaningful for our community.”

Holding up a copy of the golden anniversary edition, Saurage said, “League members who preceded us 50 years ago memorialized their family recipes that are preserved in the cookbook. They revealed secrets of great cooking. Many of these recipes would have been lost forever. Nationwide, folks understand that if they want their cooking to taste like great Louisiana cooking, they can learn how from ‘River Road Recipes.’ ”