Cookbook has southwestern Pa. flavor
?Uniontown native Douglas Robinson published a historical cookbook for the southwestern Pennsylvania region as a “labor of love.”
The “I Grew Up in Southwestern Pennsylvania Cookbook” features historical facts, more than 100 vintage photographs, southwestern Pennsylvania slang word definitions and a compilation of more than 200 recipes that are signatures of the area and dear to a wide range of local residents.
“This is more than a cookbook but it is a stroll back into the childhood of those of us who grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania,” Robinson wrote on the back cover.
He said he had the idea when he began to notice a draw to local cookbooks. As a bookseller and book collector, Robinson often travels to book sales. He said there are people lining the blocks who rush in the door like it’s a sale at a department store.
“People go for different reasons. Book collectors could find a missing book. College students can get textbooks. I go to hundreds a year,” Robinson said.
At one book sale, he picked up a church cookbook that happened to be the last copy. He noticed a few women watching him.
“They all acted resentful to me. I told them they could have it,” he said, laughing.
The local cookbooks are always collectible and worth money, Robinson said. He said he sees specialty cookbooks “everywhere.” Local cookbooks with plastic bindings and that are battered can be worth up to $70.
“I see how dear they are to people. They don’t give it up too easy. It’s not like a novel that you just drop off at your local donation center,” Robinson said.
He said he told his wife one day he would write a cookbook for the people of southwestern Pennsylvania.
“I thought the idea would work, so I put history together with the cookbook. I put it together with a different twist and it developed itself as I wrote it,” he said.
Robinson said he is a historian who wrote about local people, places and food, but he does a moderate amount of cooking himself.
The recipes in the cookbook are from Robinson’s mother, family members and neighbors. He also gathered popular recipes and recipes from the turn of the century from the Internet.
“When a lot of immigrants were coming looking for work and Andrew Carnegie owned everything, they all traded recipes and they got combined. So a lot of old-time recipes in there I got from old coal miners’ wives. They thought it was thrilling that someone wanted them. They were willing to give me every recipe from their book,” Robinson said.
He said he wanted to put recipes in the book that were meaningful to many people in the area from hunters to children who love Kennywood amusement park in West Mifflin, to old coal miners’ wives.
Robinson’s favorite recipe is kielbasa and sauerkraut.
“My wife and kids hate it,” he said with a laugh.
He also enjoys pierogies.
“I eat pierogies for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” he said.
Robinson was born in Uniontown. He lived in Grindstone and then in Masontown before moving to Florida as a young adult. His wife, who is from New York, still chides him for his southwestern Pennsylvania slang, asking him things like, “What’s a sliding board?” They built a life in the South until hurricanes left them with no choice but to move. They were excited that they had a reason to come back to the North, where ties were strong, he said.
“You’re always an outsider, but at home there is a feeling of belonging. As you get older, that’s what you look for. You feel like you just walked in the door… I always thought Pennsylvania was the best place to live. I always thought Uniontown was the most underestimated town in Pa.,” Robinson said.
Robinson, Laura and their two children, Doug and Abigail, moved to Bentleyville in Washington County 10 years ago.
Robinson said he took his children on a tour of everywhere he went when he was growing up, and he found the place more interesting than he ever realized.
“It’s fascinating to find out about other people who were successful that came out of this area. You see all the empty houses and there’s a lot of destruction around here, because when the coal mines stopped making coke, half the people left, and now there’s the remnants of that. (When you’re young) you feel stuck in an area that is never going to be anything. It inspires you. I really think this area is going to come back in a big way someday,” he said.
Robinson later decided he wanted to become an entrepreneur and he wanted to do something that he loved for a living, he said. With a love for books, he began to sell them for Amazon.com. His goal was to save some money in order to start a publishing company and write his own books.
“I didn’t want to hand my book into people all the time. I felt I had enough experience as a book seller, so that’s what I wanted to do. This is what I’m doing in between trying to be an author. In the end, I want to have a couple successful books, and then I want to publish other up-and-coming people with interesting books,” Robinson said.
“I Grew Up in Southwestern Pennsylvania Cookbook” is the first of Robinson’s own books that he has published.
It is available for purchase online. A portion of the proceeds from cookbook sales will benefit prostate cancer research.
“Prostate cancer in my family is very high. I felt something should go to that. It’s a family thing,” Robinson said.
For more information or to purchase a copy of the cookbook, visit the website www.igrewupinswpa.com.