The A B C of Cooking — Story, Setting & Ideas

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Authors: Coit, Adeline Balch, 1861-1931 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2014 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Cooking, American Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 5,221

Reading time 23 min

Text sections 1

Before opening The A B C of Cooking — Story, Setting & Ideas, the edition data offers a quick orientation: 5,221 words, 23 min estimated reading time, and 1 detected text section.

The text analysis averages about 21.9 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Cooking, American,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #45838

A 1917 cookbook for men with no cooking experience, designed for small boats, patrol boats, camps, and marches. Recipes are simple, use limited ingredients, and include coffee, oatmeal, macaroni, and flapjacks. The book reflects wartime resourcefulness and practical instruction.

Editorial Edition Score 4.3/5

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg45838

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For men with no experience of cooking on Small Boats, Patrol Boats, in Camps, on Marches, etc.

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY

For the benefit of the Knitting Committee of THE AMERICAN DEFENSE SOCIETY, which is knitting for American Soldiers and Sailors, and it is hoped that both cook-book and knitted garments may help to make more comfortable the men who are only too ready to do their bit.

New York, May 26th, 1917.

Macaroni and Cheese 15

Fried Potatoes and Onions 15

Fried Eggs and Bacon 17

Baking Powder Biscuit 19

Fried Cracker or Hard Bread 21

Rice Griddle Cakes 21

Fried Corn Meal Mush or Hominy 23

Baked Canned Salmon 25

Canned Corned Beef Hash 27

Beef Steak and Onions 29

To Boil Fresh Potatoes 33

To Boil Fresh String Beans 33

To Boil Fresh Sweet Corn 33

To Boil Fresh Peas 35

How to Cook Canned Tomatoes 35

How to Cook Canned Corn 35

"_Unless the kettle boiling be, filling the tea pot spoils the tea._"

1 tablespoonful of coffee for each person and 1 for the pot 1 cup of boiling water for each person and 1 for the pot

Put the coffee into the coffee pot, mix with cold water into a wet paste. Pour on the boiling water and boil for five minutes slowly.

To make COFFEE WITH AN EGG, break an egg and mix it, shell and all, with the paste, and make as above.

1 teaspoonful of tea for a person, and 1 for the pot 1 cupful of boiling water, and 1 for the pot

Let it steep for three minutes.

Heat 1 quart of milk 2 teaspoonsful of cocoa

Mix the cocoa and a little of the warm milk to let it melt, and then mix all together, keeping it on a slow fire.

OATMEAL FOR THREE PERSONS[1]

½ cup of oatmeal (Quaker Oats) 1 quart of hot water. A pinch of salt

Boil fifteen minutes.

[1] Many of these recipes are given for three persons. For a smaller or larger number decrease or increase ingredients in proper proportion.

CORN MEAL FOR THREE PERSONS

½ cup corn meal 1 quart hot water Pinch of salt

Boil fifteen minutes.

HOMINY FOR THREE PERSONS

¼ of a cup of hominy, steeped in cold water over night

In the morning, boil fifteen or twenty minutes in a quart of hot water, and a pinch of salt.

BOILED RICE FOR THREE PERSONS

½ cup of rice in two quarts of boiling water

Boil for fifteen minutes. Wash rice first.

MACARONI FOR THREE PERSONS

Break into inch pieces a cup full of macaroni, and cover with boiling water in a saucepan. Add a little salt, and cook until soft (about an hour). Keep covered with water while boiling.

If you have an oven, take a pan or dish that can be put into the oven. Put in a layer of boiled macaroni, some pieces of cheese, a little mustard and salt, and a little butter. Then more macaroni and the other things, until your dish is full. Fill the dish with milk, and bake in a slow oven for half an hour. Put cheese on the top before baking.

FRIED POTATOES AND ONIONS

Slice some cooked or uncooked potatoes and slice some onions. Put into a hot frying pan with fat, salt pork or bacon, and cook till soft and brown.

Put butter, or fat, or bacon or salt pork in the frying pan (about 1 teaspoonful of butter for 3 or 4 eggs, and other frying material in proportion). When hot, stir in the eggs, which have been broken into a bowl and beaten, adding a little milk (1 tablespoonful for 2 eggs), salt and pepper.

Put on the frying pan. When it is hot, put in the bacon. Cook for about 3 minutes, and put on a dish.

Then break one egg at a time in a saucer and put into the hot frying pan, with the grease in it. You can put in as many eggs as there is room for. Cook for two or three minutes.

Boil in boiling water for 3 minutes for soft boiled.

Boil in boiling water for 5 minutes for hard boiled.

BAKING POWDER BISCUIT

2 cups of flour 4 teaspoonsful of baking powder 1 teaspoonful of salt 1 tablespoonful of lard 1 tablespoonful of butter ¾ cup of milk and water in equal parts

Mix the dry ingredients as well as you can with a spoon, then add the milk and water. Roll out and cut into biscuits, and bake about ten minutes in medium hot oven.

4 cups of flour 2 heaping teaspoonsful of baking powder 1 tablespoonful of melted butter 1½ cups of milk 1 heaping teaspoonful of salt 1 egg

Mix and sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Beat the egg and add to milk. Then add the flour and melted butter. Bake in a moderate oven.

FRIED CRACKER OR HARD BREAD

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Adeline Balch Coit's The A B C of Cooking (1917) is a compact manual addressed explicitly to men with no cooking experience, intended for use on small boats, patrol boats, in camps, or on marches. The book's dedication to the Knitting Committee of the American Defense Society situates it within World War I home-front efforts, aiming to make soldiers and sailors more comfortable. The recipes are stripped to essentials: coffee is made by mixing grounds with cold water into a wet paste, then boiling; tea steeps for exactly three minutes; cocoa is heated slowly with milk. Portions are often given for three persons, with a note to increase or decrease ingredients proportionally. The language is direct and assumes minimal equipment—a coffee pot, a saucepan, a fire.

Recipes Built for Constraints

The recipes consistently rely on a short list of shelf-stable or easily procured ingredients: oatmeal, corn meal, hominy, rice, macaroni, canned fish, canned corn, canned tomatoes, and dried fruit. Fresh items appear only in a few vegetable recipes—potatoes, string beans, sweet corn, peas—and even those are boiled simply. The absence of fresh meat beyond bacon and steak is notable; the meat stew and corned beef hash use canned or preserved products. This suggests the book was designed for situations where refrigeration was unavailable and supply chains were limited. The instructions assume the cook has access to boiling water, a fire, and basic utensils, but no oven for baking—biscuits and muffins are made on a griddle or in a pan. The emphasis is on speed and reliability: oatmeal and corn meal both boil for fifteen minutes; rice boils for fifteen minutes after washing. The book's structure mirrors the constraints of field cooking, where every minute and every ingredient counts.

A Voice That Assumes Nothing

Coit's prose is remarkably spare and procedural, leaving no step to inference. For macaroni, she writes: 'Break into inch pieces a cup full of macaroni, and cover with boiling water in a saucepan. Add a little salt, and cook until soft (about an hour). Keep covered with water while boiling.' The instruction to keep the macaroni covered with water is the kind of detail an experienced cook might omit, but a novice would need. Similarly, for fried eggs and bacon, the recipe likely explains the sequence (though the excerpt cuts off). The book's title—The A B C of Cooking—is literal: it starts from the alphabet of kitchen knowledge. The opening epigraph, 'Unless the kettle boiling be, filling the tea pot spoils the tea,' reinforces the theme that fundamental steps must be mastered first. This pedagogical clarity makes the book a historical document of how cooking was taught to absolute beginners in a military context.

Wartime Economy and the Domestic Front

The dedication to the Knitting Committee of the American Defense Society explicitly links the cookbook to the war effort: 'it is hoped that both cook-book and knitted garments may help to make more comfortable the men who are only too ready to do their bit.' This frames cooking as a form of patriotic service, extending domestic labor into the military sphere. The recipes themselves reflect economy—using canned goods, stretching ingredients with water, and avoiding waste. For example, coffee with an egg uses 'shell and all,' a thrifty technique that also clarifies the brew. The book's small size (5,221 words) and portable format suggest it was meant to be carried in a pocket or kit. The 1917 publication date places it just after the U.S. entry into World War I, when such practical guides would have been in demand. Coit's work is a snapshot of how American domestic science adapted to wartime conditions, translating home economics into field rations.

Readers approaching The A B C of Cooking should note that it is not a comprehensive cookbook but a targeted manual for a specific audience and setting. The recipes are best understood as historical artifacts of early twentieth-century foodways and military logistics. The book's value lies in its directness and its reflection of the material realities of its time—limited ingredients, basic equipment, and an urgent need for nourishing meals. For modern cooks, it offers a glimpse into the culinary constraints of the past and the ingenuity required to work within them.

There’s a quiet kinship between that 1917 cookbook for men on small boats—its coffee and flapjacks measured for wartime patience—and Camp fires and camp cooking — A Reader’s Guide. Both understand how a simple meal, made carefully, can steady a tired soul. I’ve always found that tenderness between the two. That’s all.