Dainties, Salads and Clever Hints. [Compiled by Members of the] Royal Neighbors of America Crown Camp 4224 New Albany

New Albany, Ind: [Printed by The Tribune Company(?), 1916. Octavo (22 x 15 cm.), 44, [iv] pages. Advertisements. Author from cover. Printer and date of publication from external evidence. ~ Evident FIRST EDITION. A contract community cookbook undertaken "in answer to the demand among church and club women for something new" - a reference to "relishes, garnishes, and much [else that] will appeal to the women seeking a pleasing change" (from the anonymous prefatory paragraph headed "Popular Dainties" on page 3). With three hundred short, unattributed recipes, including: Sweet Pepper Salad, Orange de Menthe (with pickled walnuts), Dandelion Salad ("In the spring time, every household should have this salad at least once a day."), Nasturtium Salad, Pickled Oysters, Gooseberry Relish, Pineapple Flummery, Maraschino Ice Cream, Pomegranate Punch, Ginger Root Punch, Sassafras Shrub, Nut Glace, Candied Violets, and a peculiar grouping of Chili con Carne, Fish Chowder, Loo Ching Suey, Li Hung Chang Suey, and Mushrooms à la Japan. ~ Crown Camp 4224 was a chapter of the Royal Neighbors of America, a mutual aid collective first conceived by wives and members of the fraternal society Modern Woodmen of America, in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and formally chartered in 1895 in Peoria, Illinois. Modeled on the Woodmen, a beneficial fraternity also born in Iowa, the Neighbors expanded after their incorporation into dozens of communities, espousing a philanthropic mission to provide assistance in times of need. Both organizations established themselves as purveyors of insurance products, in which guise they continue to conduct business still. ~ New Albany, seat of Floyd County on the southern border, faces Louisville across the Ohio River. Its Neighbors chapter, identifying themselves in city directories as the Ladies' Auxiliary of Woodmen chapter 3463, met on Wednesdays in the hall of yet another fraternal organization, the Improved Order of Red Men, at 107 West Market Street. Their cookbook is presumed to have been assembled by means of a contract service, as at least five other instances of the same title are known, all of them with advertising from different communities but without corporate ascription on their title pages. That the recipes are unattributed also suggests a process of compilation from a list of offerings rather than submission by authors to an editorial committee. Local printing by the Tribune is proposed solely on the notion that the newspaper's job printing service was much used by, and well advertised in, directory and other community service publications. ~ Several clues to dating provide a reasonable if not definitive span. On the later end, the detailed advertisement for J. H. Fisher Wines & Liquors on the rear panel of the wrappers suggests the sensitivities that must have lain under the surface ("auto delivery, with no signs" and "no marks to indicate contents") before Prohibition reached Indiana in April 1918. But a handwritten annotation in pencil to a recipe for Feather Cake (on page 43) - "Baked Oct. 20 '16" - can be permitted to tighten the frame by two years. The terminus post quem might also be pushed back, as the note of proprietorship in an advertisement (on the interior front panel) for the Knoefel Drug Company might signal the business's recent purchase by Edward G. Mayes in November 1911 (The Pharmaceutical Era 44 no. 11 [November 1911], page 505). But on a cautionary note, it also may be the case that Rose Detrick's purchase of a millinery store in 1913 (Currier-Journal [Louisville, Aug 21, 1913], page 10) may be the transaction referred to in an advertisement on page [24]. ~ Age-toning and light soil throughout; stapled, in soiled and rubbed printed gray wrappers, with advertisements to all panels. Good. Unrecorded. [OCLC locates no copies; not in Brown, Cook, or Cagle].