The Spirit of Seventy-Six!

In honor of the 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence, all recipes through July 4, 2026 will be from Centennial and Bicentennial cookbooks and the 1796 first American cookbook. Enjoy this look at the (gastronomic) spirit of ’76 as we head into the sestercentennial!

I’ve also published a Sestercentennial Cookery with recipes and photos.

Coconut Oatmeal Cookies: Phyllis Loughmiller’s Coconut-Oatmeal Cookies from the 1975 Fruitport Bicentennial Cook Book.; seventies; 1970s; cookies; oatmeal; coconut; recipe; America’s Bicentennial; Fruitport, Michigan

Coconut-oatmeal cookies were popularized by the Baker’s Coconut company, for the obvious purpose of selling more coconut. I prefer versions that use more oatmeal, such as this one. This one also increases the ratio of brown sugar to sugar over the “official” version, which, also, improves it to my taste.

This is a great snack to have in the cookie jar over a summer of gatherings!

Drop in again soon for another vintage recipe! I’ll have a different recipe every Sunday afternoon throughout the year. Keep an eye on this page or subscribe to the RSS feed for further details. You can also browse past featured Club recipes as well as some of the vintage promotional cookbooks I’ve used as sources. And I collect many of these recipes in A Traveling Man’s Cookery Book.

Recipe blogging:

Originals:

Inspirations:

Archives:

The more you know about food, the more you can enjoy life. — Elizabeth Gordon (Cuisines of the Western World)