The Key West Cook Book. By the Members of the Key West Woman's Club by Key West Woman's Club - 1949

Key West/ New York: Key West Women's Club / Farrar, Straus and Company, 1949. Octavo (22 x 14.5 cm.), [vi], 298, [xii] pages. Illustrated. Table of contents. Second Edition; originally issued the prior year by the Women's Club without the Farrar, Straus involvement. A community cookbook by a woman's civic society that assisted in fundraising over the course of four decades. Nearly two hundred attributed recipes, with each page a photo-reproduction of the contributor's handwritten recipes. With an emphasis on sea animals, game, and island fare: Jewfish, kingfish, grouper, crawfish, terrapin, conch-many approached in multiple ways. Recipes include: Breadfruit, Baked Cucumbers, Green Plantains, Carissa (i.e., Natal plum) Salad, Fried Pineapple, Guava Dumplings, Papaya Key West, Tamarind Ice, and of course Key Lime Pie. The Key West Woman's Club has been associated with the establishment and maintenance of a public library since its origins, under the name of several parent organizations, in the 1890s. The present name was adopted in 1929, when it purchased its first meeting house (a home on Truman Avenue). One of the town's historic residences from the 1890s, on Duvall Street, became the new public library and home of the Woman's Club in 1940. The 1948 Cook Book was six years in preparation, according to the acknowledgment - its editors and illustrators are listed - but evidently performed well, raising funds, often for medical and healthcare charities, through fourteen printings (twelve with Farrar, Straus). A new (expanded) edition was published in 1988. Comb-bound stiff wrappers, printed in blue and yellow, depict an island cornucopia spilling loose out of a chef's hat. Small adhesion mark to front wrapper panel and a bit of staining to rear panel, otherwise fine. [OCLC locates nine copies of the original printing and numerous copies of subsequent printings dated 1949; Brown 497 (first printing); not in Cagle].