Caladesi Island Cookbook Satisfies Taste for Local Foods and History

An appetite for regional cooking and a taste for local history will both find satisfaction in an appealing new cookbook from the University of Tampa Press.   
         

From main courses like “Smoked Fish Pioneer Style” and “Hog Island BBQ Ribs” to sweet treats such as “Sea Foam,” and “Belleview Hotel Prune Whip,” the Caladesi Cookbook offers tempting recipes for seafood, salads, vegetables, breads, and desserts.

Title: Caladesi Cookbook: Recipes from a Florida Lifetime, 1895-1992
Author: Myrtle Scharrer Betz | Compiled by Terry Fortner & Suzanne Thorp
Price: $15 Paperback  (ORDER HERE)

Myrtle Scharrer Betz, born and raised on Caladesi Island at the turn of the last century, was a resourceful and accomplished cook who took pleasure in serving delicious meals and passing along her favorite recipes. Now her granddaughters, Terry Fortner and Suzanne Thorp, have compiled the best of them and added generous helpings of vintage photos and excerpts from Myrtle’s letters and writings, along with a dash of their own special memories.
    

The result is a flavorful complement to Myrtle’s memoir, Yesteryear I Lived in Paradise, published by the University of Tampa Press and 2009 winner of  a Florida Trust for Historic Preservation Award.  The book has been printed with soy-based inks on recycled text paper, and a portion of proceeds from its sales will directly support Caladesi Island State Park.   
    

Historian Gary Mormino, Duckwall Professor of Florida History at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, writes: “Caladesi Cookbook: Recipes from a Florida Lifetime is pure delight. More than simply a good cookbook, it is a touching story of a lost and vanishing Florida. . . . Myrtle’s granddaughters, Terry Fortner and Suzanne Thorp, have lovingly compiled not simply the recipes, but the memories and stories that make Caladesi Cookbook: Recipes from a Florida Lifetime a culinary and historic treasure.”
    

The Caladesi Cookbook will be available at Honeymoon Island Nature Center, Café Honeymoon, and Café Caladesi at the State Parks.  On the mainland it can be found at the Dunedin Historical Museum, Dunedin Fine Art Center,  Dunedin's Painted Fish Gallery, Tarpon Historical Museum, Heritage Village in Largo, Gulf Beaches Historical Museum in Gulfport, North Pinellas Historical Museum in Palm Harbor, and other locations.  It can also be ordered directly from the publisher.

Copies of Caladesi Cookbook: Recipes from a Florida Lifetime, 1895-1992 by Myrtle Scharrer Betz can be ordered with any major credit card on the University of Tampa Press web site at http://utpress.ut.edu; Visa and Mastercard orders are accepted by phone at (813) 253-6266.

For information regarding a Caladesi Memories talk and book signing appearance please contact: Terry Fortner at 727-786-2837—or e-mail tcf53@hotmail.com