The American Gothic Cookbook

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Summary: Recipes form the artist Grant Wood
Review: American Gothic Cookbook in the popular recipe file-card size format, this easy-flip cookbook includes the artist's mother's recipe for stew, his housekeeper's recipe for salad dressing, and his own Cabbage Rolls. It is chock full of Grant Wood lore and illustrations, both his whimsical Farm Hill illustrations and his evocative lithographs. One recipe for old-fashioned tomato soup runs on for six pages; excuse him, but the cook is a [Pulitzer Prize-winning] writer*, just making sure the saying gets said right.

Conceived through the eye, mind and paintbrush of Iowa artist Grant Wood, the American Gothic couple uniquely reflect the cultural traditions of the Midwest. In the words of Grant Wood, "Any northern town old enough to have some buildings dating back to the Civil War is liable to have a house or church in the American Gothic style. I simply invented some American Gothic people to stand in front of a house of this type." In fact, he used his sister Nan Wood Graham and his dentist Dr. Byron McKeeby as models for the 1930 painting. Mrs. McKeeby's recipe for pie crust is included.

These are recipes for honest, hard-working, Midwestern fare. There are also lots of picnic dishes. Grant Wood loved a picnic. Penfield Press publisher Joan Liffring-Zug-Bourret has customarily had dozens of friends, family, and neighbors over for 4th of July potlucks. Favorite dishes from these fests appear in this volume.

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*Iowa's MacKinlay Kantor, author of the novel Andersonville.