Applehood & Motherpie by The Junior League of Rochester

Published August 2, 2025
Contributed by Ian Fine-Free


Source: www.etsy.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Some interesting customization was done for the title: double underlines that blend into certain letters; a flourished, angled crossbar and differing leg lengths for the A; and extended and shifted arms of the & and swash M.





While most community cookbooks have a reach limited to a specific time and place, some do go onto wider acclaim and use, as is the case with some of the cookbooks produced by Junior League associations. One example of such a cookbook is the Rochester chapter's Applehood & Motherpie. The cookbook has gone through at least 17 print runs, numbering over 250,000 copies. In 1990, it was inducted into the Walter S. McIlhenny Hall of Fame for community cookbooks.

Applehood is set overwhelmingly in varying weights of ITC Bookman, with titles and other key text using swash alternates. The one small exception is that the opening initials to passages dedicated to anecdotes and tips use swash neo-Bookman Bold Italic instead.




Source: www.etsy.com License: All Rights Reserved.


License: All Rights Reserved.

A green apple next to a recipe indicates that it ranked very well amongst the cookbook’s testers.




Source: www.ebay.com License: All Rights Reserved.


License: All Rights Reserved.

An example of the anecdotal text interspersed throughout the cookbook, seen here with a swash neo-Bookman A.




Source: www.ebay.com License: All Rights Reserved.

The Rochester area is a large producer of apples, thus the title and motif (and numerous recipes featuring the fruit).




Source: www.democratandchronicle.com Democrat and Chronicle. License: All Rights Reserved.

The crease that runs horizontally across the cover is designed to be bent so as to allow the book to stand upright.



This post was originally published at Fonts In Use
WRITTEN BY

FontsInUse

An independent archive of typography.