OXFORD – The United Church of Oxford (UCO) has ‘cooked up’ a fundraising, original recipe book for sale titled “Recipes from the Heart,” just in time for Christmas shopping. If you’re stumped for a gift, this little book is packed firmly with well loved recipes, a dollop of history, a pinch of humor, and a generous helping of good cooking hints.

The UCO Cookbook Committee collected many fine recipes from church members like Dorothy Hamstra’s “Creamed Onions” and Sherry Behe’s “German Red Cabbage.” When contemplating the project, however, Donna Cuyle, the Cookbook Project Chair, thought it would be an interesting ‘tip of the hat’ to have some recipes that were historic to the United Church of Oxford. So, Cuyle borrowed Jane Van Der Eems’ antique, The Oxford New Century Cookbook printed by the Ladies Aid Society of the First Baptist Church in 1912, and selected a few recipes to add some historic ‘flavor’ to the publication.

Because of the book’s historic references, Carol Russell gave a description of the cookbook at the Dec. 7 meeting of the Oxford Historical Society. She mentioned that there is a page of background on how the UCO, with roots that go back to 1799, came to be. For history buffs, there’s more.

Carol set the stage to harken back to 1912, when the ‘lady of the house’ faced a number of food preparation challenges. The level of cooking difficulty was compounded when using a wood fired kitchen range since temperatures weren’t regulated like today. Carol said, “It was by guess and by God that the food came out right!” She also explained that some modern measurement equivalents were substituted in the new book whenever possible for ease of understanding.