Moore Groceries|Every Vicksburg home needs this unique cookbook

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Moore Grocery might never have existed in Vicksburg, but “Moore Groceries” is here to stay. The new cookbook by that name, which took several years in the making, has hit the road for sales, and every area kitchen should have a copy. Here’s the story.

The idea

Almost two years ago the Vicksburg and Warren County Historical Society decided to compile a cookbook to benefit the Old Court House Museum. Denise Sassone took on the chairmanship of the project and soon after elicited the help of native Vicksburg resident Martha Whitaker. Together they have put together a cookbook full of delicious recipes, historic pictures and a perfect peek at the past.

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Treasures abound at the Old Court House Museum and the possibilities for direction were endless. The J. Mack Moore collection seemed literally to be the lens that made everything clear, so the name, “Moore Groceries,” became the tie for the court house connection to foods.

Comments from Whitaker

“I have often been asked if there was ever a grocery in Vicksburg by that name, and I always answer the same, ‘Yes, but it lives only in my computer.’ Once we found the name, the approach for the cookbook was easy. All of the elements had to look old, but be new. Another way of saying it — all of the elements had to look like an old grocery but without the dust.

“The font, for instance, looks the way a person J. Mack Moore’s age wrote, so the end result is a computer-generated, old-age handwriting. The first page is printed on vellum to simulate the look of a glass negative. Even putting the names on the recipes was well-thought-out. It was decided on because it was not only logical for a book coming from the Historical Society, but because it truly is a community cookbook, and so many books today are celebrity chef books.

“Working with the glass negatives and having access to all the nooks and crannies of the Court House was a privilege. The guys at the Court House were a wealth of information and very supportive of the entire process. It was absolutely like a kid in a candy store or, I guess in this case, a grocery store. While in ‘the store,’ I found my grandmother, my father, the ancestors of friends, and so many people and places I had read about all of my life. Matching people’s recipes with their ancestry was great fun.”

Some examples

* There’s Tommy “Luke” Hughes’ recipe for Tomato Place Pie paired with an image of Cedar Grove, the home his great-grandfather built.

* And Dee Hyland’s recipe for Pineapple Fried Rice on a page with husband John Lee Hyland’s grandfather’s image.

* And Brenda Koestler’s Family Angel Biscuits with a photo of old Koestler’s Bakery on Washington Street.

These images and so many more are part of the J. Mack Moore Collection.

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Contact Laurin Stamm at lstamm@vicksburgpost.com.