OK–Have you ever delved into your family history to wish that perhaps you hadn’t have been so inquisitive? As I was working on my new page last night for this site, “Cookbooks that I Can’t Live Without” (see Foodie Reads), I listed one from my grandmother’s collection, a collection of about five or six cookbooks that I cherish. One, called simply The Searchlight, is often referred to by my family. I will call mom for a recipe and she will usually say, “Oh, that is in the old Searchlight book of mom’s. Don’t you have that?”
So, as I was putting together my list of favorite cookbooks, I googled each one to see if there was a corresponding website. (Yes, I even did this for the cookbook from the 1930s.) Imagine my surprise when I found out that Searchlight is a magazine devoted to “anti-fascism” and “has been exposing the far right” for thirty years. OK–from many attic hunts at my grandmother’s, I know I had a great-grandfather that was into every conspiracy theory there was at the beginning of the 20th Century. I have found many books in that attic ranging from “who or what” really killed Harding to other perceived plots that I would rather not mention.
I really had to stop and think if I really wanted to list that cookbook along with my favorites. As I was mulling this decision, it dawned on me to look more closely at the title page of the book. It was published in Topeka, KS. Hmmm–that is an odd place for an international anti-fascism magazine to be published. Then I luckily read on to find that the entire title of the book was The Household Magazine Searchlight Cook Book, not The Searchlight Magazine Cook Book. Imagine my relief! (But, now I am wondering what recipes could be found in an anti-fascist cookbook?)
I can know safely resume my perception that we are and were a liberal family, just not radically so!
