This week, my daughters Kristina and Kara are enjoying a relaxing couple of days in America’s chocolate land – Hershey, Pennsylvania. This is one of the stops on their road trip East to settle Kara into her new place of residence for special job training near Washington, DC. Since Kara will be experiencing some intense training, they thought what could be a better place than Hershey to relax and have some fun, and where chocolate is a daily menu staple! Could anything be better than daily chocolate? I think not. The girls have not been to Hershey since they were very young, and they are looking forward to revisiting some of their old memories.
With the trip in mind, I decided to dig up this delightful Hershey cookbook from the ’70’s. The book is updated from the original 1934 version, using more convenient kitchen appliances, better ovens, and revision of recipes, while using the same wonderful Hershey chocolate products. When the book was written in the early ’30’s, Hoover was about to vacate the White House to be replaced by President-elect Roosevelt. The population of the United States was approximately 123 million, with 53 million of them still living on farms. The hourly work wage was 44 cents. Economically, the country was in one of the worst periods, politically in turmoil, and socially we looked for about any panacea that would temporarily remove our fears. Homes averaged about $2,500. A new Ford coupe cost $600. And Hershey had already been making chocolate for about 30 years, offering the American housewife cocoa, baking chocolate, chocolate syrup, and milk chocolate bars.
The cookbook is not only great fun to read, but contains classic chocolate recipes for cakes, icings, sauces, pies cookies, beverages, and candies. Look at some of the mouth-watering dishes:
Chocolate Chiffon Pie!
Old-Fashioned Chocolate Ice Cream!
If you are looking for a good, basic chocolate cookbook, you can’t miss with this one. There are more than a dozen versions of just chocolate cake! I will be anxious to hear from the girls if Hershey has some new cookbooks, and I can’t wait to hear about their adventures this time around. Here are some blast from the past Hershey photos from when Kara was five years old, and Kristina was ten.
Kara with her Hershey teddy bear (which we still have!)
The girls always liked to draw and color on road trips. When Kara handed me this drawing along the way, I asked her what it was. She said it was our map to Hershey. I don’t recall getting lost, but it certainly looked like we did!
Sleepy girls on the way back home after a fun-filled Hershey adventure. I have no explanation for the umbrella…
Update on 4-11! Kara just sent me this photo from Hershey, where she “invented” her own chocolate bar!
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