A Bicentennial Meal for the Sestercentennial
America’s Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776•. With the declaration, we were independent in spirit, even if a lot of work still had to be done to force the world, especially England, to recognize our independence.
As 1976 approached, people began making plans to celebrate our 200th anniversary. The freedom train traveled coast to coast and a wagon train from every state traveled to Pennsylvania. Tall ships were prepped for public viewing in Operation Sail.
And a lot of albums of patriotic songs, products in patriotic colors, and magazines with patriotic themes, hit the supermarkets, newsstands, and record stores. I still remember fondly checking out Dallas Corey’s record album from the library several times, to listen to “The History of the American Revolution” in song. Because of that album, when I saw Mel Gibson’s The Patriot I knew immediately it was partly based on the Swamp Fox, Francis Marion. Musical history does help!
Sadly, very few movies celebrated the bicentennial. 1776 the Musical• was a 1969 movie release. But there were attempts at short animation and films. And television got into the game with shorts such as The Bicentennial Minute.
Johnny Cash was Grand Marshall of the U.S. Bicentennial Parade in DC, and there were parades and fireworks in towns and cities and villages all across the United States. My mom dressed us up as Uncle Sam, and my dad got his old Model T working well enough for us to ride in the village parade.
We were not alone in wearing the colors and resurrecting the past. Local church groups got into the game with cookbooks commemorating the bicentennial. Do an eBay search on bicentennial cookbook and you’ll find lots of them.1 I’m just old enough to remember 1976, and over the last couple of years I’ve picked up several of these bicentennial community cookbooks at local sales, augmenting my home town’s bicentennial book that I’ve had for decades.
They are a fascinating glimpse into the mindset of the time. Some of them include special sections for bicentennial recipes; others mention the bicentennial only on the cover. Most seem to have come out in 1976 itself, but I have one published in 1975. The Fruitport Ladies Auxiliary of VFW Post 7803 knew how to plan ahead!
In three years, in 2026, we’ll be celebrating America’s sestercentennial.2 It seems appropriate to include recipes from fifty years ago in those celebrations. The cookbooks I’ll be using are:
- The Fruitport Bicentennial Cook Book from Fruitport, Michigan.
- The Garvin County Bicentennial Recipe Book from Garvin County, Oklahoma.
- The Benton Harbor-St. Joseph Bicentennial Cookbook from Benton Harbor, Michigan.
- America’s Bicentennial Cook Book from Hesperia, Michigan.
As you can see, there’s a distinct bias toward Michigan in my collection. That’s because I grew up in Michigan. It means that when I see a Michigan cookbook it’s more likely to catch my eye. And of course I’m more likely to see such cookbooks, since community cookbooks are more likely to be found in the community they were made for.
Technically, I found the Benton Harbor cookbook in Casa Grande, Arizona. But for many Michiganders, Arizona (and Florida) are winter extensions of our home state. It’s what the term snowbird describes.
You can probably find a lot of bicentennial books from your area at local yard sales, estate sales, and auctions. I expect them to become more popular in the next few years. I’d love to see some new sestercentennial cookbooks for 2026—with modern recipes, older recipes, memories, and histories. A real celebration of America.
It’s easy to make fun of old food, especially old food from the seventies. The things they did with gelatin! But they had their reasons. Some of it was probably economical—gelatin can extend a couple of servings into several servings—but some of it is that gelatin is a means of protecting food from the ravages of time and the elements.
Summer is a great time for guacamole, for example, but it changes color quickly and especially in the heat of an outdoor picnic. What we need is a sort of “stabilized guac”, like stabilized whipped cream. Well, Garvin County has your back! One of the most surprising recipes I tried for this blog post is the Jellied Guacamole from the Garvin County book.
Jellied Guacamole
Servings: 18
Preparation Time: 8 hours
Mrs. Robert Clinton
Review: Garvin County Extension Home-Makers Bicentennial Recipe Book 1976 (Jerry@Goodreads)
Ingredients
- 2 packages plain gelatin
- 1 cup cold water
- 2 cups boiling water
- 4 cups mashed avocado
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- 1 tsp salt or to taste
- Hot pepper sauce to taste
Steps
- Soften the gelatin in cold water.
- Dissolve in the boiling water.
- Mash avocado with lemon juice.
- Add salt, hot pepper sauce, and gelatin.
- Chill until firm.
Jellied guacamole sounds completely unappetizing. I would never have made it if it hadn’t crossed my eye while looking for weird recipes for this blog post. It occurred to me that for an outdoor picnic on a warm day it was just crazy enough it might work. It turns out that the gelatin doesn’t change the flavor. It may make it lighter, because you can more easily whip guacamole when it contains gelatin. And it also seems to make the guacamole hold its color and flavor longer.
Much longer.
I made this recipe on a Wednesday. The recipe calls for putting it in a mold. I put it into one main mold and two smaller ones for testing. I ate half of the first of the smaller molds the next day, and the leftovers only slowly turned darker (and remained green) over the next two days as I finished it. On Sunday morning, I unmolded the remaining small one, to see if the big one was likely okay enough to bring to a neighbors for Christmas dinner. It was still green, so I unmolded the big one, in its full seventies glory.
I always have trouble with molds that aren’t mostly gelatin, as you can see from the photos. They either don’t come out without force, causing the molded dish to tear. Or I have to put them in lukewarm water so long that they start melting, making them look like something out of a wax horror movie.
There is, however, no reason to mold this guacamole unless you need it specially shaped. The point of guacamole is for dipping or spreading on something else, and the same is true of this jellied guacamole. It’s very simple, and almost certainly meant for adding your own special spices. But at its base it’s avocado, lemon juice, a touch of hot sauce (it calls for Tabasco, I used Melinda’s), and plain gelatin.
It was great on chips, great on bread, and great in French omelets. And you can make it well ahead of time whether you mold it or not.
For something else snackable that looks like it came from 1976, the Benton Harbor Cheese-Olive Puffs are very tasty. If you have a pickle tray, they’re a great accompaniment. They’re basically stuffed olives wrapped in paprika-flavored cheese dough. The recipe says “serve warm”. They do not have to be served warm. Just make sure you bake them until they’re slightly crunchy.
Cheese-Olive Puffs
Servings: 24
Preparation Time: 45 minutes
Betty Moore
Review: Benton Harbor Bicentennial Cookbook (Jerry@Goodreads)
Ingredients
- ¼ lb grated cheese
- ¼ cup soft butter
- ½ cup flour
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ tsp paprika
- 24 stuffed olives
Steps
- Mix the cheese, butter, flour, salt, and paprika to make a dough.
- Wrap one teaspoon of dough around each olive.
- Place on ungreased baking sheet.
- Bake at 400° for 10-15 minutes.
Also for that pickle tray, bread-and-butter pickles are easy to make, and far better than commercial brands. The One-Gallon Pickles in the Fruitport book can be made in as little as three days. Easy, and they can easily be made in bulk.
Fruitport Bread & Butter Pickles
Servings: 8
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Mrs. June Lykens and Thelma Featherstone
Review: Bicentennial Cook Book, Fruitport Ladies Auxiliary Post 7803 (Jerry@Goodreads)
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp salt
- 1½ cup vinegar
- 1½ cup sugar
- ½ tsp. celery seed
- ½ tsp. dry mustard
- ½ tsp. turmeric
- 1 large onion, sliced
- 1½ lbs sliced cucumbers
Steps
- Put salt, vinegar, sugar, celery seed, mustard, and turmeric in a half-gallon or two-quart jar.
- Shake to mix.
- Add onions and cucumbers.
- Swirl gently to mix.
- Store in the refrigerator.
- Swirl (without opening) once each day for three to seven days.
If you have a cheese plate, some herb crackers might be in order. They’re straight out of the whole grain movement of the seventies, that almost resurrected local whole grain suppliers such as El Molino Mills.
Herb Crackers
Servings: 24
Preparation Time: 45 minutes
Mrs. John W. Fowler, Sr.
Review: Garvin County Extension Home-Makers Bicentennial Recipe Book 1976 (Jerry@Goodreads)
Ingredients
- ½ cup rye flour
- ½ cup fine corn meal
- ¾ tsp salt
- ½ tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tbsp caraway seeds
- ¼ tsp dill weed
- ¼ tsp tarragon
- ¼ cup oil
- 5 tbsp cold water
- more caraway seeds
Steps
- Mix the rye flour, corn flour, salt, yeast, caraway, dill, and tarragon.
- Mix the oil and the water.
- Add to dry ingredients and stir with a fork until a ball is formed.
- Roll onto floured board.
- Cut into squares or shapes.
- Top with more caraway seeds.
- Bake on a lightly-oiled cookie sheet 400° for about 8 minutes.
I personally enjoy grazing the sweets table at picnics as much as the savory table. That means cookies, brownies, and bars.
If you want an iconic cookie for the sweets table, you can do a lot worse than the Fruitport book’s coconut oatmeal cookies. I compared them to an official Baker’s Coconut version and they came out the winner, mainly because I prefer oatmeal to coconut.
If you don’t like coconut at all in your oatmeal cookies, crisp oatmeal cookies with dried cranberries are one of the cookies I make most.
Oatmeal Cranberry Crisps
Servings: 48
Preparation Time: 45 minutes
Mary Starks
St. Mary’s Altar Society Cookbooks
America’s Bicentennial Cook Book Featuring Favorite Recipes From Hesperia, Michigan
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 cups oatmeal
- 1 cup cranberries
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 3 tbsp cold water
Steps
- Mix butter, brown sugar, and eggs well.
- Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into creamed mixture alternately with oatmeal.
- Mix in cranberries, vanilla, and water.
- Drop from teaspoons onto a lightly greased baking sheet.
- Flatten with a fork dipped in cold water.
- Bake 375° for ten minutes.
No-bake cookies are also always a hit, and these are my favorite, from my hometown America’s Bicentennial book.
For completely non-oatmeal cookies, try some sour milk sugar cookies. Sour milk was a common ingredient back then, and it seems to have been forgotten (or actively denigrated) in modern cookbooks. I’ve found that it really helps make a beautiful sugar cookie or muffin.
Rounding out the sweet finger foods, Benton Harbor’s baked rice krispie cookies are a real treat.
You will also want some desserts on the sweets table for after the meal. There will of course have to be pies. Pies were commonly made with canned fillings in a baked or unbaked shell. For a unique pie shell, consider a coconut pie crust. Coconut, like gelatin, was a lot more common, in my experience, in the seventies than it is today.
Coconut Pie Crust
Servings: 1
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Mrs. Ray Duncan
Review: Garvin County Extension Home-Makers Bicentennial Recipe Book 1976 (Jerry@Goodreads)
Bicentennial Pie for Pi Day
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup butter
- 2 cups coconut
Steps
- Melt the butter over low heat.
- Stir-fry the coconut until lightly browned.
- Press the coconut into a pie dish and chill.
Fruit crumbles were also very common to the era. The rhubarb crumble I’m recommending is especially nostalgic for me: it’s not just from my hometown bicentennial cookbook, it was contributed by my mother. We ate a lot of rhubarb growing up, and it was an ingredient I never grew tired of.
Rhubarb Crumble
Servings: 16
Preparation Time: 1 hour
Kathy Stratton
St. Mary’s Altar Society Cookbooks
America’s Bicentennial Cook Book Featuring Favorite Recipes From Hesperia, Michigan
Ingredients
- crust
- 1 cup brown sugar
- ½ cup shortening
- 10 drops red food coloring
- 1 cup flour
- dash of salt
- 1 cup oatmeal
- filling
- 2 cups rhubarb
- sugar to taste
Steps
- Cook the rhubarb and sweeten to taste.
- Mix crust ingredients together in order.
- Spread half of the crust in the bottom of an 8x8x2 inch pan.
- Pour the filling into the pan.
- Sprinkle the remaining dough over the top.
- Bake at 400° for 12-20 minutes.
When it comes to the main meal, coleslaw is de rigueur for these events. It’s far easier to add to a paper or styrofoam plate than a lettuce salad or built salad. The cole slaw in the Benton Harbor book is a real winner, especially for those who don’t like mayonnaise.
Sweet Cole Slaw
Servings: 16
Preparation Time: 3 hours
Mary Houtz
Review: Benton Harbor Bicentennial Cookbook (Jerry@Goodreads)
Ingredients
- 2 to 2-½ lbs cabbage
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 yellow bell pepper
- 1 large onion
- 2 tablespoons chopped jalapeño
- salt and pepper
- 1-½ cup sugar
- 1 cup vinegar
- 1 cup salad oil
- 1 tsp ground mustard
- 1 tsp celery seed
Steps
- Shred the cabbage into a bowl.
- Shred the bell peppers and lay on top.
- Shred the onion and lay on top.
- Sprinkle the chopped jalapeño on top.
- Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Mix the sugar, vinegar, salad oil, mustard, and celery seed.
- Pour over the vegetables.
- Cover, and let stand two hours.
- Mix well and store in refrigerator.
If you prefer a mayonnaise cole slaw, however, consider my aunt’s cole slaw dressing.
Cole Slaw Dressing
Servings: 8
Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Maryann Bisson
St. Mary’s Altar Society Cookbooks
America’s Bicentennial Cook Book Featuring Favorite Recipes From Hesperia, Michigan
Ingredients
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- 2 tbsp cider vinegar
- 1 tsp sugar
- ½ tsp dill seed
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp pepper
- ½ head of cabbage
Steps
- Shred approximately ½ head of cabbage, depending on size.
- Blend the mayonnaise, vinegar, sugar, and spices thoroughly.
- Mix with the shredded cabbage.
Cabbage isn’t just for coleslaw. For a hot dish, the Benton Harbor cabbage in cheese sauce is also amazing.
Cabbage in Cheese Sauce
Servings: 8
Preparation Time: 45 minutes
Betty Moore
Review: Bicentennial Cook Book, Fruitport Ladies Auxiliary Post 7803 (Jerry@Goodreads)
Ingredients
- 1 large head cabbage
- boiling salted water
- ¼ cup butter
- ¼ cup flour
- 1 tsp salt
- a few grains pepper
- 2 cups milk
- 1-½ cup grated sharp cheddar
Steps
- Shred the cabbage.
- Cover with boiling salted water.
- Cook about eight minutes until crisp-tender.
- Drain.
- Melt the butter in a saucepan and then blend in the flour, salt, and pepper.
- Slowly add the milk and cook, stirring constantly, until smooth and thickened.
- Add the cheese and stir until melted.
- Add the cabbage and mix well.
And fruit salads abounded, especially fruit salads in creamy gelatin. The creamy orange salad in the Fruitport book can be easily mixed with fruit, coconut, marshmallows, whatever you want, for a beautiful fruit salad on the main table.
Creamy Orange Filling or Salad
Servings: 8
Preparation Time: 45 minutes
Jean Anderson
Review: Bicentennial Cook Book, Fruitport Ladies Auxiliary Post 7803 (Jerry@Goodreads)
Bicentennial Pie for Pi Day
Ingredients
- 1 gelatin packet
- ⅓ cup sugar
- zest and juice of two oranges
- 1 cup boiling water
- 1 cup cold water
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 1 cup whipping cream
- ½ cup chopped macadamia nuts.
Steps
- Mix the gelatin and sugar together.
- Dissolve in boiling water.
- Mix in the juice, zest, and cold water.
- Add cream cheese and beat until smooth.
- Refrigerate until partially set.
- Whip the cream and fold into the partially set gelatin.
- Pour into a pre-baked pie crust, or mix with fruit.
- Chill until firm.
- Sprinkle macadamia nuts over top.
You can also use the basic recipe, perhaps mixed with berries, for a pie filling. All you need to do is pour it into a prebaked shell—such as the coconut shell, above.
A classic dish for the main table is barbecued franks and beans. This is pure comfort food, and is treated as much as a salad as a meat dish.
Barbecued Franks and Beans
Servings: 4
Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Colleen Edwards
Review: Bicentennial Cook Book, Fruitport Ladies Auxiliary Post 7803 (Jerry@Goodreads)
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 medium onion
- 1 tbsp flour
- ½ cup tomato sauce
- ½ cup beef bouillon
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- ½ tsp sugar
- 1 tsp chili powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 cup drained kidney beans
- ½ lb franks, cut diagonally
Steps
- Melt the butter in a large skillet.
- Add the onion and sauté until tender.
- Blend the flour with the tomato sauce, bouillon, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, chili powder, and salt.
- Stir quickly into the onion in the skillet.
- Add the kidney beans and franks.
- Simmer covered just until heated through.
But for vegetables, squash is a great summer food. This squash casserole from Garvin County is very simple; as it stands it relies heavily on the flavors of squash and tomato soaking into the rice. It could easily (and I suspect often was) spiced up with spices such as paprika or nutmeg.
Squash Casserole
Servings: 9
Preparation Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Evelyn Brooks
Review: Garvin County Extension Home-Makers Bicentennial Recipe Book 1976 (Jerry@Goodreads)
Ingredients
- ½ cup uncooked rice
- 2 medium yellow squash
- 1 tsp salt
- ¼ tsp pepper
- 2 tbsp chopped onion
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 medium tomatoes
- 2 cups water
- ½ cup cracker crumbs
- 1 tsp sugar
Steps
- Place dry rice in an 8 or 9-inch pan.
- Slice squash over rice.
- Sprinkle with salt, pepper, onion, and butter.
- Cover with sliced tomatoes.
- Sprinkle with sugar.
- Add water.
- Cover and bake 45 minutes at 350°.
- Uncover and top with cracker crumbs and cook until brown.
And of course no picnic or pot-luck is complete without fried chicken. This recipe is a geographical double whammy for me. Mrs. Mary E. Wilson submitted it to the Benton Harbor cookbook—from Dallas, Texas. Crunchy and lemony and very buttery. This is one of those recipes where the skin is the best part. It’s easy to make ahead of time in the oven; and while I haven’t tried it, I suspect it would be good over the grill basting it occasionally with the lemon barbecue sauce.
Lemon-Barbecue Chicken
Servings: 4
Preparation Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Ms. Mary E. Wilson
Review: Benton Harbor Bicentennial Cookbook (Jerry@Goodreads)
Ingredients
- Chicken
- ½ cup butter
- 2-½ lb frying chicken
- 1 cup flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- Sauce
- ½ cup lemon juice
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp onion, minced
- 1 tsp salt
Steps
- Cut the chicken into pieces.
- Melt the butter in a shallow baking pan while preheating the oven to 400°.
- Whisk the flour, salt, and pepper together.
- Coat the chicken pieces in the seasoned flour.
- Place skin down in a single layer in the baking pan.
- Bake 30 minutes at 400°.
- Meanwhile, mix the lemon juice, oil, garlic, onion, and salt for the sauce.
- Turn the chicken skin up and pour the sauce over.
- Bake another 20-30 minutes, until tender.
As you think about your July 4 meal this year, consider what you’re going to do for the sestercentennial in three years. The lead-up to the bicentennial in 1975 and 1976 was inspiring to live through as a child. It’s up to us to make our 250th as inspiring to children today as the 200th was in 1976. And to ensure that America and its ideals are still worth celebrating after 300 years for today’s children to relay to their children’s children in 2076!
In response to Holiday food: From Christmas to Easter to Independence Day and more, holidays are times for sharing great food.
- June 26, 2024: A Centennial Meal for the Sestercentennial
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Last year, I provided recipes from cookbooks that celebrated the bicentennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This year, I’m going back to 1876 for some great—and some merely good—recipes to help celebrate Independence Day. As we near the Sestercentennial in 2026, it’s interesting to look back on our shared culinary history during previous celebrations.
One of the benefits of 150-year-old cookbooks is that this year, all of the books I’m referencing except one are available for download. The only one that isn’t available, I’ve scanned in myself. So you can download the Rumford Company’s ca. 1877 Horsford Cook-Book (PDF File, 4.7 MB) now, too.
These are books that either directly celebrated the Centennial or advertised awards for taking part in other celebrations. There don’t seem to be that many. Some may have been lost, of course, but I wonder how popular Centennial celebrations were in 1876. It was barely a decade after the Civil War ended (1865) and only six years after the last Confederate state was readmitted to the Union. Ulysses S. Grant—General Grant in the war—had just finished his second term.
Clearly, not everyone was into the spirit of ’76. The Ladies of Plymouth Church in Des Moines, Iowa came out with a cookbook that they titled, literally, “76.” (with quotes). Despite its title it does not mention the Centennial at all. At the end of its introduction it quotes Jefferson:
“May you live long and prosper.”
But that turns out to be, not the founder, but an actor famous for playing Rip van Winkle. Whether Leonard Nimoy got his variation of this randomly, via Joseph Jefferson, or via Harry S. Truman, who apparently also appropriated it, is not recorded in the historical record.
Mostly priced so high that they never sell. I’ve been watching cookbooks online for years, and keep seeing the same community cookbooks over and over. A lot of the sellers don’t even bother to show what’s inside the cookbooks.
↑Also, semiquincentennial, quarter millennial, and bicenquinquagenary, in order of most to least pronounceable.
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cookbooks
- Baker’s Dozen Coconut Oatmeal Cookies
- The Baker’s Dozen coconut oatmeal cookies, compared to a very similar recipe from the Fruitport, Michigan bicentennial cookbook.
- Bicentennial Pie for Pi Day
- A pie and crust from 1976 for Pi Day. The crust is a coconut crust, and the pie is a whipped orange-gelatin filling. Top it all off with chopped macadamia nuts and you’ve got a pie fit for any holiday.
- El Molino Best: Whole grains in 1953
- El Molino Mills of Alhambra, California, published a fascinating whole grain cookbook in 1953.
- Review: Benton Harbor Bicentennial Cookbook: Jerry Stratton at Jerry@Goodreads
- From the Benton Harbor—St. Joseph Chapter of Squaws, Incorporated, a wonderful collection of great recipes for home and potluck.
- Review: Bicentennial Cook Book, Fruitport Ladies Auxiliary Post 7803: Jerry Stratton at Jerry@Goodreads
- Bread and butter pickles, barbecued franks and beans, creamy orange salad—this Fruitport, Michigan bicentennial cookbook is filled with homey recipes.
- Review: Garvin County Extension Home-Makers Bicentennial Recipe Book 1976: Jerry Stratton at Jerry@Goodreads
- I seem to find it hard to resist community cookbooks specifically meant to celebrate our 200th anniversary. This book represents a small Oklahoma county and a lot of fascinating recipes.
- St. Mary’s Altar Society Cookbooks
- The missing index for the St. Mary’s Altar Society cookbooks from 1976 through 1981.
entertainment
- 1776•: Sherman Edwards, Peter Stone, and Peter H. Hunt (DVD)
- A fun musical with long interludes of politics.
- 200: Vince Collins
- An amazingly psychedelic bicentennial animation capturing the spirit of the seventies.
- The Bicentennial Minute
- “The Bicentennial Minute was an occasionally bland but also occasionally interesting minute-long segment delivered by a celebrity about what happened in U.S. history 200 years ago that day. Celebrate your Fourth of July holiday listening about this patriotic throwback to the 70s.”
- Bicentennial Minute: August 31, 1775
- “A Bicentennial Minute from the summer of 1975 starring Jessica Tandy.”
- Celebrating America: The USIA Young Filmmaker Bicentennial Grant Project: Audrey Amidon
- “Many federal agencies hopped on the Bicentennial bandwagon, among them the organization that promoted American democracy abroad, the United States Information Agency (USIA). For its Bicentennial celebration, the USIA created a grant program for student filmmakers with a plan to distribute the films overseas.”
events
- 1976 OpSail Event
- “Operation Sail 1976 provided a centerpiece for the U.S. Bicentennial celebration. The event, which took five years to plan, featured even more tall ships than the 1964 gathering, including the Soviet Union’s czarina of the sea, the Kruzenshtern, which Frank Braynard had won over against all political odds on a trip to Moscow.”
- American Bicentennial Celebration: Tulin Babbitt, Stacy Davis, and Elizabeth Druga at Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum
- “The Bicentennial is noted for the feelings of patriotism and nostalgia that the celebrations inspired… President Ford described the effect that Bicentennial Celebrations had on the country: ‘Rarely in the history of the world had so many people turned out so spontaneously to express the love they felt for their country.’”
- Bicentennial Wagon Train
- “In celebration of America’s 200th birthday in 1976 people from across the country took part in a very unique road trip: the Bicentennial Wagon Train Pilgrimage to Pennsylvania… the wagons converged at Valley Forge on July 3, 1976, for an encampment and Bicentennial festivities the following day.”
- The Story of the 1975-1976 American Freedom Train: Larry Wines
- “In the early 1970s, Ross Rowland Jr., a young, successful New York commodities broker and occasional steam locomotive engineer, had the idea to celebrate the Bicentennial of the American Revolution with a traveling exhibition of unique and representative artifacts from the 200 year history of the nation.”
More America’s Bicentennial
- Bicentennial Pie for Pi Day
- A pie and crust from 1976 for Pi Day. The crust is a coconut crust, and the pie is a whipped orange-gelatin filling. Top it all off with chopped macadamia nuts and you’ve got a pie fit for any holiday.
More America’s Sestercentennial
- A Centennial Meal for the Sestercentennial
- How did Americans in 1876 celebrate the centennial culinarily? Some of their recipes are surprisingly modern, and some are unique flavors worthy of resurrecting.
More cookbooks
- Refrigerator Revolution Revisited: 1942 Cold Cooking
- Iceless refrigeration had come a long way in the fourteen years since Frigidaire Recipes. And so had gelatin!
- Rumford Recipes Sliding Cookbooks
- One of the most interesting experiments in early twentieth century promotional baking pamphlets is this pair of sliding recipe cards from Rumford.
- A Traveling Man’s Cookery Book
- A Traveling Man’s Cookery Book is a collection of recipes that I enjoy making while traveling, and in other people’s kitchens.
- Tempt Them with Tastier Foods: Second Printing
- The second printing of Tempt Them with Tastier Foods contains several newly-discovered Eddie Doucette recipes, as well as an interview with the chef’s son, Eddie Doucette III.
- My Year in Food: 2023
- From Italy to the Ukraine—some of it real, and some through cookbooks—this has been a great year for food.
- 65 more pages with the topic cookbooks, and other related pages
More Fourth of July
- Let mortal tongues awake
- Samuel Francis Smith’s America—more commonly known as “My Country, ’Tis of Thee”— is short, direct, and a wonderful hymn to God as the soul of liberty. It’s a perfect hymn for the Fourth of July. It’s also very easy to play using the piano script from 42 Astounding Scripts.
- The Star-Spangled Banner in MIDI
- What could be more appropriate for the fireworks of the Fourth of July than a song about bombs bursting in air, illuminating a great flag rippling defiantly to a hostile world?
- Commemorate Patriot Day with Betsy Ross
- The Declaration of Independence overlaid on the Betsy Ross flag.
More recipes
- A Traveling Man’s Cookery Book
- A Traveling Man’s Cookery Book is a collection of recipes that I enjoy making while traveling, and in other people’s kitchens.
- Tempt Them with Tastier Foods: Second Printing
- The second printing of Tempt Them with Tastier Foods contains several newly-discovered Eddie Doucette recipes, as well as an interview with the chef’s son, Eddie Doucette III.
- Looking back over 1950 in vintage cooking
- While I didn’t make my goal of trying a recipe every month in the month it was meant for, following this calendar through 2023 was an interesting experience and provided some very good food.
- Plain & Fancy in the seventies with Hiram Walker
- Enjoy a whole new world of fun, excitement and discovery in Hiram Walker Cordials, adding a personal touch to all your memorable moments and special occasions—plain or fancy!
- Eddie Doucette recipe sampler
- Despite their occasional weirdness, I’ve yet to try a recipe that didn’t turn out at least pretty good. Some are amazing.
- Six more pages with the topic recipes, and other related pages
More seventies
- Plain & Fancy in the seventies with Hiram Walker
- Enjoy a whole new world of fun, excitement and discovery in Hiram Walker Cordials, adding a personal touch to all your memorable moments and special occasions—plain or fancy!
- Hesperia Class of ’82
- The 40th reunion for the Hesperia High School Class of 1982 is July 15 through July 17, 2022. We look forward to seeing you!
- Hobby Computer Handbook: From 1979 to 1981
- Hobby Computer Handbook lived for four issues, from 1979 to 1981. Back in 1979 and 1980, I bought the middle two issues. I’ve recently had the opportunity to buy and read the bookend issues.
- Better for being ridden: the eternal lie of the anointed
- Whenever there’s a crisis, politicians and the media always tell us that if we do what they say, we’ll be all right. This is always a lie. And however often they fail and however many die from their ministrations, their wabbling fingers always return to the mire.
- All the President’s Men
- Probably one of the most influential events in journalism history made into one of the best films of the seventies.
- Five more pages with the topic seventies, and other related pages