How to Preserve a Husband

This recipe was submitted by Emily Drake for a Recipe Collection. It was mimeographed, so the collection was assembled some time ago. Emily and Gordon had a very successful marriage of almost 64 years (minus 3 days). Now they are together again.

How to Preserve a Husband

Be careful in your selection. Do not choose too young. When selected, give your entire thoughts to preparation for domestic use.

Some wives insist upon keeping them in a pickle. Others are constantly getting them into hot water. This may make them sour, hard and sometimes bitter. Even poor varieties may be made sweet, tender and good by garnishing them with patience, well sweetened with love and seasoned with kisses.

Wrap them in a mantle of charity. Keep warm with a steady fire of domestic devotion and serve with peaches and cream.

Thus prepared, they will keep for years.

Introduction

This blog was created to share the recipes of

Emily Allgood Drake

May 26, 1912 -- August 22, 2009.

She learned to cook at a very young age from her mother who had been a servant in rich people's homes in Salt Lake City. She continually increased her cooking skills throughout her life.

She was a 4-H leader for over 70 years and she taught her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren as well as many others. She had vegetable gardens, flower gardens, fruit trees, berry bushes, and grape vines. She raised chickens for eggs and meat. She was an expert at food preservation. She was also an accomplished seamstress and made nearly all of her family's clothing and did custom sewing for other people. She learned to refinish and upholster furniture. If there was anything she could do to improve her family's life she would learn how to do it and then do it.

She often said that she had obtained the equivalent of a degree in home economics because of all the USU Extension workshops and leadership trainings she had participated in.

Guess where I learned how to create a blog?
That's right. It was at an USU Extension workshop. It was the Diversified Agriculture Conference in Delta, Utah in February 2009. In the traditional 4-H teaching method of learning by doing, each student was given a computer to use and created their own blog right in the workshop. There are other ways to learn how to blog, but I think it was appropriate that I learned how to create Emily's blog in a USU Extension workshop.

I think Emily would encourage her posterity to seek knowledge where ever it could be found, through formal education, at churches, at libraries, and in all media. I believe that had she been born at a different time she would have loved the Internet! You need to know that she was always looking for new recipes. We lived next door and she gave us her newspaper (Deseret Morning News) after she was finished with it. Oftentimes I would notice that recipes had been clipped out. Then I would go to the web edition and to see whether the recipe she had clipped was something I wanted too.

In the spirit of Emily's continual quest for learning and improving her family's life I hope that everyone reading her recipes and trying her recipes will not be afraid to change and improve upon them. You are not being given "secret family recipes." You are being given the example of a wonderful woman who was always sharing and serving others. Please feel free to make comments and suggestions and corrections and to share with others. Let me know if there are particular recipes that you remember that you would like me to feature.