The Ridge Historical Society
Christmas Cookies
By Carol Flynn
Homemade cookies at Christmastime are a time-honored tradition.
People spend the month of December planning and shopping, and then days in the kitchen baking family favorites and traditional ethnic delights, and perhaps trying a new recipe or two.
For decades, Chicagoans looked to the Chicago Tribune and food editor Mary Meade for Christmas cookie recipes and ideas, and Mary never disappointed.
Take the year 1952, for example. As the attached article reports, on Friday, November 28, Mary offered her readers a free copy of her Christmas Cooky Collection, a selection of recipes that had appeared in articles, if they sent in a large, stamped, self-addressed envelope. Within 10 days, she had 10,000 requests.
Mary Meade, of course, was none other than Beverly’s own Ruth Ellen Church.
“Mary Meade” was the name the Tribune used for its women food writers for years, and Church was the fourth Mary Meade. A generic name was used because it was common practice that women did not stay long in professional jobs but left to marry and become full-time homemakers and mothers.
Ruth Ellen Church broke that mold. She served as food editor from 1936 to 1974, while marrying and raising two sons. She started the first wine column in a U.S. newspaper and published over a dozen cookbooks and also served as a Boy Scout den mother and a trustee for the Morgan Park Academy.
At the Chicago Tribune, Church oversaw the largest food staff of any paper in the country, which included five home economists. She established a kitchen in the Tribune Tower for recipe testing and food photography. Every recipe the Tribune published, about 2000 per year, was tested first in the kitchen.
One of the recipes featured in the 1952 cooky collection was English toffee cookies. This recipe was published in the Chicago Tribune during Church’s time and is shared here.
And while they are delicious any time of the year, rumor has it that they are among Santa's favorites, so make a few extra to leave out on Christmas Eve for the big guy in red.