From the New England Kitchen of Heloise Frost

I probably bring too many things made of paper home from estate sales.  But paper is one of the ways we record important things; paper helps tell the story of our lives.

Case in point: a small box of greeting cards I picked up at a sale earlier this year. 

The box is labeled

NEW ENGLAND 

NOTES

with

Traditional Recipes

From the New England Kitchen

of Heloise Frost

 Inside was a set of blank greeting cards. 

And a set of different recipes, one for each card.

You fold a recipe and tuck it into a slot cut into the front of the blank card.

The inside of the card opens to reveal a space to write a personal note.

  
I suspect these cards date back to the early 1950s. That's when a couple of cookbooks were published under the name of Heloise Frost.  One was called Early American Recipes and the other, A World of Good Eating.

I wasn't able to find out anything about Heloise Frost, save that she was a New England author who lived in an 1809 house in New Hampshire. (She was not the same "Heloise" who's famous for writing a syndicated newspaper household advice column, Hints from Heloise.)

The illustrations for Early American Recipes were by another New Englander, artist Barbara Corrigan, and it appears that the designs on my vintage greeting cards were by Corrigan as well.  She was a well-known and respected New England artist, who illustrated books and also drew for the children's magazine Highlights.

Here are some of the recipes from the greeting card set.

I don't have a copy of either of Heloise Frost's cookbooks, but their legacy lives on, online.  Cookbook collector The Culinary Cellar has blogged about her:

http://theculinarycellar.com/a-world-of-food-from-a-1950s-new-england-kitchen/

Copies of Frost's two books are readily available from online sellers, from $5 to $50 and more.

Here's an article on artist Barbara Corrigan:

http://www.thesunchronicle.com/go/ahead-of-her-time/article_3efbb2f6-e901-5ab8-b1b1-f6bf0fa0ed3b.html