Do you know anyone who learned to cook along with Gail Palmby and her recipes, published in The Farmer Magazine in the 1950’s. Perhaps you learned to make “Toad in the Hole” with a slice of bread and an egg. Or “Braised Pork Chops,” using lard, a product of any farm that raised hogs. A column entitled “Let’s Cook with Gail” was published monthly between September, 1952 and September 1954. A spiral-bound booklet could be purchased into which the monthly features were pasted. A booklet was also published in early 1954 with all the preceding columns, and room for the remaining columns.
Gail was 11 when the cooking features began to appear. The daughter of Janet and Clarence Palmby, she lived on a farm just out of Garden City, attended school in Garden City, was a member of the Keen Klover 4-H club, and her family were active in the Methodist Church in Vernon Center. The recipes, with helpful hints, were the work of Gail and her mother. She told her readers that she had been cooking since she was 7 years old. She started helping her mother set the table. Gail had two younger brothers, Phil and Tom, who sometimes appear in pictures in the booklet, but more often are mentioned as tasters!
The recipes included everything from cakes and candy to cooking meats and making jams and jellys. Columns were also filled with helpful hints like how to separate an egg yolk from the white or safety tips when making candy. This is the booklet’s hints on sandwich making: “Sandwiches are nicer if the slices of bread are matched. Take two slices of bread and open them like a book. Butter both slices thinly clear to the very edge. Spread the filling to the very edge, also. Put the slices of bread together again, and cut in half, across from corner to corner.” Gail could have offered that advice when she wrote about taking lunch to her dad in the field.
Information on roasting a chicken began with cleaning, drawing, singeing and removing pin feathers.
The cooking lessons ended, perhaps because the family moved to Washington, DC where her father became Director of the Grain Division of the Commodity Stabilization Service in the Eisenhower Administration. He later served as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for International Affairs and Commodity Programs in the Nixon Administration. In 1972 Clarence and Janet moved to Manhattan where he was Senior Vice President for Continental Grain Company.
The Palmby grandparents, Addie and Ernest, moved to Blue Earth County in 1920. Although Janet and Clarence returned to Minnesota in retirement, they did not live in the county. Gail Palmby Geidl passed away in 1994.
By Hilda Parks
Thank you for the great article, Hilda.
I have the book…I remember watching for the articles and pasting them in my book.
Is there anyway I can purchase the Let’s cook with Gail cookbooks
I still have not found a physical copy, besides my mother’s clip and paste spiral notebook from the 50’s.(she has photo copied her book to make copies for my sister and I) I did however find that the U of M has a digital copy available online to view. They day they have a physical copy in storage that is available to borrow, however I am not a student or an alumni. 🙁
Here is the Google ebook via the U of M
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951d02396017p
Thank you so much for the link to the ebook from the U of M. I’ve had the cut out cookie recipe hand written and wanted to check the transcription since it’s been through many hands and almost a game of telephone. I’ve always wondered if I should sift my flour before or after measuring. The recipe says “sifted” flour so I assume it should be sifted before measuring but then in the recipe it also also says to sift the flour with the levening, etc. Still unsure. I may have to do 2 test batches. I have always had trouble with them spreading even though I chill my dough. But that might be due to the fact my mother taught me to use butter instead of shortening like the recipe says. Thank you again for the link. This was my mom’s cookbook from when she was a girl in Martin County MN – Welcome to be exact. Her name is Marayln and her sisters name is Gail
I had a red Let’s Cook with Gail cookbook that I used a lot when I was young. I am looking for one for my grand daughter…we both have the middle name GAIL. Are there any available? Thank yoiu.
We do not have any for sale at the History Center, but you could check on Amazon or Ebay to see if people are selling their copies.
Heather, I have one of her cookbooks. I live 8n Alberta Canada. I would love to return it to someone in her family I have it on Facebook that I am trying to find someone. Hope u can help me.
If you have not found a family member of Gale’s ( she passed in 1994)
Are you willing to part with your copy?
My grandmother gave me that book back in 1964. My favorite cookbook to this day. In fact, I am helping my neighbor girl learn to bake pies. Using the recipe from that book for pie and crust. Would love to get another copy, lol, mine is WELL USED.
My first cookbook and I still have it, although it’s in tatters. I photocopied the pages and put them in transparent sleeves in a 3 ring binder when my children were learning to cook. When my daughter was 9 she used Gail’s apple pie recipe to win the county fair apple pie baking competition. We still use her recipes for banana bread and fruit cobblers.
My name is Gayle (spelled Gail back in the 50s). My sister-in-law’s mother gave me the book and I thought it was so much fun to have another Gail close to my age with her own cookbook. I’m sorry to hear she is no longer living.