Good Grief! The Peanuts Cook Book (1970)

Charlie Brown as a celebrity chef? Happiness is “The Peanuts Cook Book” which Scholastic Book Services (the eventual beneficiary of Harry Potter’s U.S. fortune) published in 1970. With a price tag of sixty cents, this was a favorite cook book of my formative years. The lime-green-covered paperback with hot pink pages contained 21 recipes interspersed with Peanuts cartoon strips exploring all aspects of the pint-sized culinary world.

Well before the era of Power Rangers or Teen Age Ninja Turtles, my cartoon companions were Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus and friends. If Charlie Brown liked to cook, I was into it, too. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was the hot holiday television special, and I collected a stack of paperbacks reprinting the daily cartoon strip by Charles M. Schulz. My mom even fashioned felt hand puppets for me that bore an uncanny resemblance to Charlie Brown and Lucy.

Beyond Snoopy’s craving for cookies and his penchant for quaffing down root beers as the World War I Flying Ace, or Schroeder’s insistence that one of Beethoven’s favorite dishes was Macaroni and Cheese, sustenance plays a very integral role in the security-driven philosophy of Charlie Brown, the little round-headed kid with the striped shirt. Here are just a few food-focused proverbs from the pen of Charles M. Schulz:

Security is a candy bar hidden in the freezer.

Happiness is a bread and butter sandwich folded over.

Security is knowing there’s some more pie left.

The often world-weary Peanuts gang had somewhat of a lighter touch in the kitchen. I remember preparing “Happiness is a Hot Cheese-Tomato Sandwich,” “Great Pumpkin Cookies,” “Frieda’s French Toast” and “Red Baron Root Beer” which featured frozen root beer cubes with maraschino cherries. There’s even a recipe for “Snoopy’s Steak Tartar,” with a disclaimer that it is “for DOGS only, and maybe cats.”

Perhaps the definitive Peanuts-themed recipe in the slender volume is something we all crave at one time or another. It includes kid-friendly directions, appropriate warnings about kitchen safety, and even a second quick-cook version courtesy of Linus:

SECURITY CINNAMON TOAST
(from “Peanuts Cook Book, Scholastic Book Services, 1970)

8 slices white bread
½ stick butter
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 scant tablespoon cinnamon

Melt butter with sugar and cinnamon. Cook gently while toasting bread on ONE side only in broiler. Spread untoasted side of bread with sugar mixture and place under medium-hot broiler until sugar is crusty and bubbly. The sugar’s hot! Be careful!

Another way Linus does it is make toast in the toaster. Then he spreads it with butter immediately, and shakes a spoonful of cinnamon sugar (2 tablespoons sugar mixed with a teaspoon of cinnamon) over the buttered toast.

Happiness is still being able to page through a favorite childhood cookbook, even after 38 years!

©2008 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

Kitchen Fun: A Cook Book for Children (1932)

My stash of cookbooks has overtaken the house. I’ve lost count and I’m considering running a classified advertisement seeking a part time cookbook librarian. My tastes run from the classic to the historic to the curious. Some cookbooks – one or two a month, maybe – are purchased on an impulse. I do wonder what kind of dinner party will inspire me to cook from Mountain Makin’s in the Smokies and the contents of the Sherlock Holmes Cookbook are a bit of a mystery. The I Love Lucy Cookbook makes me laugh, and I get nostalgic when I page through my volumes of children’s cookbooks. My collection contains a treasure trove of potential culinary adventures, so I thought it might be fun to do a little exploring from time to time.

Like many children’s cookbooks of the late 19th and early 20th century, Kitchen Fun: A Cook Book for Children, published in 1932 by Louisa Price Bell had the appearance of a storybook. Bell was, in fact, a children’s storybook writer. I got my copy through an online antique cookbook dealer, and the charming illustration of the little girl on the cover bears a striking resemblance to my mom when she was a youngster.

Kitchen Fun has 24 recipes with step-by-step directions and graphic symbols of food ingredients, measuring cups and water faucets make instructions simple to follow. I have a friend who was a pioneering food writer, and she told me she made the recipe for “Yummy Eggs” from Kitchen Fun on her honeymoon. The recipes are simple, sturdy and dependable – a solid foundation for children learning the ins and outs of the kitchen for the first time.

My copy has the name “Jean Brown” written in pencil above the table of contents page. I wonder who Jean Brown grew up to be, and what kinds of dishes she liked to cook as an adult?

Since autumn is just around the corner, and it is apple picking season, here’s a recipe from Kitchen Fun that will appeal to children of any age. Spicy Apple Sauce is simple, thick and delicious, with sweet flavors of juicy apples, peppery cloves and hints of honey.

Spicy Apple Sauce

From Kitchen Fun: A Cook Book for Children, The Harter Publishing Company, Cleveland, Ohio, 1932

6 Sour Apples (I used “Honey Crisp Apples” from the North Fork of Long Island)
2/3 cup sugar
1 Cup Water
8 Whole Cloves

Wash apples. Cut apples in quarters. Take out core carefully. Put apples, sugar, water, and cloves in saucepan. Cook ½ hour slowly. Mash through colander or strainer.

For more on children’s cookbooks, read American Children’s Cookbooks of the 50s and 60s which has just been posted on the Culinary Types main site.

©2007 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved