Possibly more food than in Farmer Boy

Catherine Woolley, author of the Ginnie books (and the Libby books, and the Cathy Leonard books), is renowned for her ability to connect with young readers. But I read her books for one reason: the food.

Ginnie was the first and best of Woolley's pre-teen protagonists, and before she transitioned to mystery-solving (Ginnie and the Mystery Doll, Ginnie and the Mystery Cat), she tended to have problems that revolved around typically 50's domestic issues: taking care of young children (Ginnie's Babysitting Business), winning a cooking contest (Ginnie and the Cooking Contest). These two books were written in 1963 and 1966, respectively, but the domestic picture they paint is pure 50s.

In Ginnie's Babysitting Business alone, the following foods, and descriptions of their preparation, adorn the modest plot:

Lemon-jelly cake (see yesterday's post)
fudge
fudge, again
and again
coffee, muffins, and scrambled eggs
steak
hamburgers, potato chips, tomoatoes, pickles, and toasted rolls. Also marshmallows (lesson for children's book authors: never hesitate to interrupt the plot with a cookout).
turkey with stuffing
sirloin steak, French fried potatoes, and cherry-stone clams
hot fudge sundaes with chocolate ice cream and pecans (at Schrafft's!)
mincemeat pie
turkey sandwiches and cocoa
pancakes
jello mold with apricots and cherries, angel food cake with whipped cream and strawberries, rolls, ham, tossed salad, potato cassarole

All this in a scant 160 pages (with illustrations). Ginnie and the Cooking Contest, naturally, is even more jam-packed with recipes and descriptions.

Woolley herself never married and had no children. But she lived to be 100, so maybe there's hope for the fudge-lover in all of us.