Jennifer and I were enjoying the opening festivities of Autumn Splendor at the Elmhurst Art Museum, sipping on wine, nibbling on finger food, chatting with old friends and acquainting new. We wandered into the galleries and the Richard Koppe Exhibit. As we entered the gallery, a display case caught my eye. Actually, something in the display case caught my eye. A book. It’s always a book with me, it seems, even in a renowned art museum. The book, to be precise, was a cookbook. I looked down and squealed “I have this book” .
As others were observing the large surrealistic works of Koppe, I was chewing on a cookbook.
Several years ago, I came across the very same cookbook in a second-hand store. “The Ford Treasury of Favorite Recipes from Famous Eating Places”. A more charming than practical compilation of recipes from famous restaurants throughout the United States, it is divided by regions, and illustrated with stylistic paintings of each restaurant, a recipe from the restaurant, and a short description. The books were sold by the Ford Motor Company in the heyday of US road travel in big cars and fine dining along the way as many veterans returned home from war, bought houses that were springing up all across the country, bought their first car . . .
. . . I snapped up the book faster than a filling station attendant once rushed out to fill up the tank, clean the windows, and check the oil!
In subsequent years, I came across several other printings of the book, with some new recipes and new restaurants as original ones closed. A small cookbook collection ensued. When in the mood for nostalgia, I’ll pull one of the Ford Treasury books out, then all of them, and browse through the regions, admire the illustrations, and reminisce over featured restaurants I have actually eaten in. As I looked into the display case at the EAM, I recognized one of the printings of “The Ford Treasury . . . ” . The book was opened to page 159, with a painting depicting the interior of the once famous Well-of-the-Sea restaurant in the Sherman Hotel in Chicago. Neither the restaurant, nor the hotel, still exists, but, the mural in the background of the illustration does. When I was though swooning over a cookbook, I looked up to see Koppe’s surrealistic mural generously covering a wall of the gallery. While not my favorite artistic style, I could not help but be impressed at the “real deal” and the vibrancy of the colors and textures. Back home, I pulled out my treasury of mid-century finds, and there it was, page 159, in the North Central region. The Well-of the-Sea. I wandered about the pages of several Treasuries, finding restaurants I recognized, even some I have eaten in, across the country, getting hungry for food – and for hitting the road. Here are a few I found that I have visited: The Wayside Inn, MA; Williamsburg Lodge, VA; Antoine’s, LA; New Salem Lodge, IL; Plentywood Farm, IL; Don the Beachcomber, HI. Do you have a dining “treasure” you would like me to look up in these books? Let me know. I would love do a future post showing a page of your remembered restaurants. 
This book jacket opens up to a map “. . . to decorate your kitchen or game room”. I think I’ll just keep this one on the book.
Lifeonthecutoff's Blog 
That’s serendipity in more ways than one! I enjoyed reading about the Ford Treasury cookbooks as well as seeing all the places you have been. No favorite restaurant for me but I also collect cookbooks and will look for these. That was a smart move on the part of Ford!
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If you should ever come upon one of these cookbooks, snatch it up, Marilyn. There are some good recipes, none of which I’ve tried, but, it is also a snippet of time you are sure to recall. Wasn’t it clever of Ford? The original price is on one of the books. $1.50. I recognized far more restaurants that I ate at. I forget. You’re in Kansas, right? How about The Stockyard Hotel in Wichita or the Red Barn Inn?
I’ll bet you and I could spend hours going through each other’s cookbooks?
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Great find! Last season, the Ladies Luncheon at our Ft Myers RV Resort featured a menu using signature recipes from various famous tearooms (or versions someone figured out and posted on the Internet). It was fun. I can’t remember what any of them were now.
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Now, that’s a good time, Sallie, with all flavors and tastes melting into a wonderful tea. That is something I would thoroughly enjoy. I wonder what the next season of the Ladies Luncheon will bring. 🙂
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What a fun post, Penny. I have a soft spot for cookery books too and often buy little souvenir ones when on my travels, but I’ve yet to see any of them featured in an exhibition. 🙂 On my only visit to the USA, a short trip to New York with DS, he treated me to dinner at the restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art, which was truly memorable. Otherwise we ate at diners and little ethnic restaurants.
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I, too, enjoy souvenir cookbooks, Perpetua, especially if there is a recipe for something I’ve eaten. This was the first time ever that I discovered one in such a way. It was fun. We love eating at diners and ethnic restaurants. We sometimes sit on a bench and watch to see where the locals and police officers go to eat. That’s where the good food is.
Thank you, Perpetua.
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Penny, this is just an experiment to see if I can comment here today. I’ve been trying to comment on Debra’s post on breathelighter and also on your reblogging of it, but in neither case has my comment appeared. Very odd.
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Sorry to hear that you can’t post on Debra’s blog, Perpetua. Your reply came in fine here. WordPress usually pretty good, but, sometimes there are kinks. Maybe try again a little later. Debra did such a wonderful and very informative post.
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It’s OK now thanks, Penny. Somehow my recent comments had become trapped by Debra’s spam filter and she’s now let me out. 🙂
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Please see if Durant’s in Phoenix AZ is in there. And maybe The Varsity. Trying to think of places I’ve visited that might be of the period.
MTM would love these books, Penny.
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I will check them as soon as I get home, Andra. Durant’s is sounding familiar. I know there are several in Charleston.
They are fun to have, Andra- and I think MTM would also enjoy the exhibit. Part of the Elmhurst Art Museum is the McCormick House, designed by Meis van der Rohe.
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What a discovery you made at the EAM, Penny! I will always remember standing there watching them slowly move the McCormick House to its new home in the park. Warm wishes on a very cold weekend! ♡
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it was amazing watching that move, wasn’t it Dawn? The EAM has gained quite a strong regard in the art world, and rightfully so. It was such a fun discovery, leading me to write about it here. Warm wishes to you as well, I’m actually up in MN right now, visiting family, and there is quite a bit of snow and cold. brrrrr! I’ll try not to bring any of it back to Illinois.
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Trust you Penny to pounce on a book! I love this metaphor: ‘I snapped up the book faster than a filling station attendant once rushed out to fill up the tank, clean the windows, and check the oil!’
Oh yes, I can remember those times, which alas have gone. It’s all self-service now.
What tasty memories you have. When I was a child we had no car, and as for going to a restaurant, it never happened. Getting fish and chips from the local fish shop was the only taste of ‘bought food’. But my mother’s cooking was the best, and we certainly didn’t miss out.
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Amazing, isn’t it, that so many of us can remember not having a car, let alone filling it with gas, and now we pump our own? Lots of changes, all in a generation or two. So it is . . .
The restaurants I visited were after I graduated from college, and then, not often, until I was much older. I once asked my dad why we never went to restaurants. His response was “why would we go to a restaurant when we have food at home and your grandmother is the world’s greatest cooks?” End of question. 🙂 We did, however, go out for ice cream. What a good cook your mother must have been, Juliet.
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That was a pretty good answer from your dad! Weren’t we lucky, to have good wholesome food at home?
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Indeed, we were, Juliet. Looking back, I have realized how seasonal it was, with lots and lots of vegetables from the garden or produce stand and winter, ah, winter filled with stuffed grape leaves that we we picked in the spring. I could go on and on, and I’m sure you could too. 🙂
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What a wonderful cook book, Penny. How fun! I can imagine how excited you’d be finding it in such a special art museum! On occasion as a child it was a really special family time to go to Clifton’s Cafeteria. I loved it because we could choose exactly what we wanted to eat. It finally closed its doors about 15 years ago, and I hear that the original in downtown Los Angeles is being restored. I’m quite excited as I occasionally hear of progress being made. We never ate in the one downtown, but should it really open, I’ll be in line. 🙂 It would be fun to have some of those old places back, wouldn’t it?
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It was a rather exhilarating moment when first I noticed “my” book in the case, Debra (I don’t get out much, tee hee) . Oh, that sounds like fun! Wouldn’t it be grand to visit the one in Los Angeles when the renovations are completed. I’ll see if Clifton’s Cafeteria is in one of the Ford Treasury Books. I plan to do a another post with everyone’s places later this week. (Just back him from MN).
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I don’t have a restaurant for you to look up but this post and the illustrations from the cookbook really bring me back to my childhood. It also makes me think of a diner I ate alone in when I was stranded in Denver last winter in a layover from Portland.
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Gosh, was that last winter? What a time you had, Janet. Glad, at least, there was a diner to be in. I’m just about to post one of the restaurants featured in one of these books. I think it IS one you will recognize, though not from childhood, certainly adulthood and where we lived. 🙂
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[…] photo is of a rendition of Plentywood Farm in one of my Ford Treasury Cookbooks. Although we never ate there on Thanksgiving, it always had the aura of “Over the River and […]
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It fills me with longing. Real food in real places.
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So very true. 🙂
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