A Portland Girl at the Chafing Dish
Oregon Historical Society photo
Four years ago, I donated to the Oregon Historical Society (OHS) library my collection of some 400 Oregon-published cookbooks, along with other research materials on Oregon’s food history. Among the books, only one was published before 1900, the Monday Club Cook Book of Astoria’s First Presbyterian Church, issued in 1899. My collection did not include a copy of Oregon’s best-known, and earliest, such work, The Web-Foot Cook Book, published in 1885 by the San Grael Society of Portland’s First Presbyterian Church. However, OHS already had a copy, and I had, and kept, a facsimile.
So I long thought that only two cookbooks had been issued in Oregon before 1900. Then I discovered that OHS had a copy of a small tome titled A Portland Girl at the Chafing Dish, by one Alice H. Sansbury. Measuring 4½ inches by 8, it has 38 pages featuring 32 recipes, each with a simple line drawing. It was printed by the noted firm of F. W. Baltes and Company. I immediately coveted it.
But it was not a title easily found in the used book trade. So, fourteen years ago, on August 24, 2012, I posted a note on AbeBooks.com that I was seeking to acquire a copy. About three years ago, I surrendered that aspiration and spent a tidy sum to have OHS scan A Portland Girl and send me the file. Sigh. It was better than nothing.
Well, bright and early on the morning of August 9, 2026, I opened my e-mail to find a message from AbeBooks.com that my wish of some fourteen years earlier had come true: a copy of A Portland Girl at the Chafing Dish was available from a Portland dealer! I immediately ordered it. It’s mine now. Aside from the copy at OHS, WorldCat shows other copies only at the University of Oregon and the University of Denver.
Alice’s introduction to her opus says “Printed guides to chafing-dish cookery are numerous, but this one has a claim to distinction. The majority of its recipes are now published for the first time, and the others are amended copies of formulae which have attained popularity. Among the hitherto unpublished recipes are those for Mussels à la Portland, Scallop of Shad Roe, Turkey Avec Marrons, Chile Con Carne, and Wall Street Clams.”
Alice Hallam Sansbury was born in The Dalles on July 2, 1876, to Harold and Harriet Hallam (Williams) Sansbury. Harold was the agent at Celilo for the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company; he died in a sailboating accident on the Columbia in August 1881. Widow Harriet married Richard R. Hoge in 1883, with whom she had another daughter, Jane, born in 1894. Richard Hoge came to Portland in 1891, and was involved here with Carnegie Steel and Equitable Savings & Loan; Richard and Harriet Hoge and Alice Sansbury were socially active and frequently appear in the society pages of the Portland Oregonian in the 1890s and 1900s. Harriet and Alice were especially involved in the support of the Fruit and Flower Mission. Alice did not marry but lived with her mother and stepfather at 731 Everett Street (now 2229 NW Everett Street).
My copy of Alice’s book is inscribed “Mrs. Westore [?] from ‘The Authoress’—1901.” The title page also has a note, in the same hand, that reads “210 St Clair St the Home of the Pabbath [?] Caller [?]” (now in the vicinity of 900 SW St. Clair Avenue).
Alice Sansbury became ill late in 1909. Her condition was not specified but was attributed to overexertion in connection with an event for the Fruit and Flower Mission. She died on December 5, 1909 at the age of 33.
An interesting aside is that a few years ago I sold a number of my books to Browsers Books in Albany, then owned by Scott Givens. Scott now owns Crooked House Books in Portland, which specializes in food-related items, and I recently sold him a goodly quantity of my non-Oregon-related cookbooks and other culinary titles. And my new copy of A Portland Girl came to me through Crooked House Books!
