The Madison County Cookbook: Homespun Recipes, Family Traditions, & Recollections from Winterset, Iowa-The Heart of Madison County

by St. Josephs Church Members (Compiler)

Gathers recipes for appetizers, breads, meat, vegetables, salads, soups, and desserts

Genres: Cookbooks

512 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1995

Reviews

[BoondocksGlam]

After 21 years I’ve read every page and tried at least 60-70% of the recipes. I love community cookbooks with submitted recipes because they are almost always filled with everyday ideas that are either new to me or variations of food I grew up with or still cook regularly today. I have my own copy and a copy I had given my grandmother (now passed on) which is filled with her handwritten notes and reviews of every recipe she tried from the book. I’d likely have given 5 stars however there are a number of recipes that I’d have loved to try but errors were missed in editing so the ingredients and instructions don’t mesh. Regardless, if you can find a copy floating around I highly recommend- it’s truly a staple in my large cookbook collection!

[Austin Canfield]

This is a very thorough middle America cookbook packed with recipes from authentic home cooks. I appreciate that it's available as a true hardback (not spiral bound) and the extra effort that was put into design and typography. The recipe instructions would have been better in list format and the book uses nonstandard abbreviations for things like cups and tablespoons. I found many of the recipes to just be basic and uninspiring, with many needing to be adapted to modern cuisine or put my own spin on to make it interesting.

[Kelli]

I love the lay out and how easy the pages are, but what first made me grab it was that it’s a community, time tested, heritage type cookbook.
Give me the southern or middle American heritage passed on to families kind of dishes all day. I love the history behind something and these kinds of dishes are perfected over time. Plus the memories attached to them are priceless.
If you ate these recipes from your grandma’s table then I want it and that’s the kind of cookbooks that are the best.

[Evelyn]

Found in a used bookstore, great find. Lots of great recipes and cute stories and hints. I always categorize cookbooks as fiction.

[Kelly]

The title was a bit misleading, as it is not about Madison County as much as it's about one church and recipes from their parishioners.

[Abbie]

My favorite recipes are the baked praline popcorn crunch by Mary Brayton, gingerbread cookies by Nancy M. Corkrean, Oh Henry bars by Patricia Morris, scones (not specified who entered this recipe), and the brunch slush by Kim Algreen. I made the Oh Henry bars for my 4 roommates and they loved just them (One of their boyfriends took two)! This was originally my grandmother's book, and she's passed it on to me. Try it out, there are SO many good things to make in this cookbook!

[Katie Kenig]

The recipes in here are what I'd call "church supper" type recipes, so not things I'd cook very often. This book was a gift when the "Bridges of" book was popular, and I guess it really is a bunch of church ladies capitalizing on the novel's success. Meh. Not that I blame them or anything, but really, I don't find this to be a great cookbook.

[Heather]

This intrigued me because of all the ethnic foods from Scandinavia to Mexico. As a girl who is cooking for four people on a budget, I definitely think that this will help me in cultivating new ideas so we don't eat the same things every week.