Lowcountry Cuisine Spring/Summer 2019

lowcountry cuisine LC 35 www.LowcountryCuisineMag.com | www.CharlestonRecipes.com and U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, former U.S. Rep. Mendel Rivers, former Gov. Robert McNair and former U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond. Others were put together more professionally – and some have had staying power in the Lowcountry over the decades. “Popular Greek Recipes,” originally published in 1957, remains a favorite today. It was compiled by the St. Irene Ladies Philoptochos Society as a fundraising cookbook for Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Charleston and is included in the Walter S. McIlhenny Hall of Fame, which recognizes community fundraising cookbooks. Only books that have sold over 100,000 copies are eligible. “Charleston Receipts” has remained, resoundingly, the most popular of local community cookbooks. I have four copies myself – three tattered and torn from decades of use and then handed down to me and one more recent copy given to me as a wedding gift. A well-worn cookbook is a well-loved cookbook, and my three older copies are a testament to the reliability of these recipes. I had the pleasure to sit down with Vereen Coen in her family home where, as a teenager, she helped her mother and a small group of Junior League of Charleston sustaining members compile and test hundreds of recipes. They were solicited from many prominent Charleston families for “Charleston Receipts” in 1950. The ladies’ intent was to raise enough money to hire a speech therapist; there were none in the state. Now 85, Coen recalled that time fondly: “I remember their excitement – they were just determined to sell it. It never occurred to them that it would be a big success – they believed in their cause, they believed in the cookbook, they loved who they did it with and they loved Charleston,” she beamed. “It was after the war, and they knew people in every city, and they contacted everyone, everywhere, to buy it. They took it in their cars to motels, which were popular at the time, selling case after case to motel restaurants, and travelers would buy them and bring them to their hometowns and stir up interest there.” The women’s hard work and belief in the cause avalanched and soon put Charleston cuisine on the map, making headlines in national publications such as Bazaar, the Herald-Tribune, Town & Country, House Beautiful, National Geographic, Life and Vogue. ‘“Charleston Receipts’ turned out to be more fun to read than the average best-seller,” Coen laughed, reading a past headline from one of her many scrapbooks on the subject. Now nearing the 900,000-copies-sold milestone, the money raised has supported not just one speech therapist but a hearing center – the first of its kind in the state – and now continues to fund other community projects through a trust. Today, the community cookbook explosion has been taken off the heat, and while some – like “Charleston Receipts” and a small handful of others – have withstood the test of time and modern factors such as the internet, technology and even the way we live our daily lives. “It’s a lot of work collecting recipes from people, compiling them and selling the books,” said David Bradley, owner of Fundcraft Publishing. In the cookbook printing business since 1950, Bradley said 16 printing companies in the United States once specialized in fundraising cookbooks, but today only two remain. He credits his company’s embracing the internet as a reason Fundcraft has withstood the downturn, and they also have branched into other areas of printing. Though his websites offer easy solutions to produce cookbooks – even supplying recipes online that can simply be chosen and assembled – the average community cookbook is becoming a thing of the past. “People move fast today and don’t have time to look through their recipe books to find something to cook for dinner. They’re looking at recipes on the internet, and they’re going out to dinner. The way most people live these days has changed, and the demand is just not there anymore. Plus, it’s much less effort for groups to raise funds selling candy bars and magazine subscriptions,” he said. Despite the decline, newer concepts of supporting Three generations cook with “Charleston Receipts”: Vereen Coen, center, and her mother and daughter. Art courtesy of Vereen Coen.