FROM YOUR NEIGHBOR'S KITCHEN - YEAR BY YEAR - INTRODUCTION
"From Your Neighbor's Kitchen" was a popular feature in The Manchester Evening Herald. Reporters and
photographers would visit homes and talk with the cook, collecting information about the recipe, the cook, and
sometimes about the house as well.
The feature usually ran on Thursdays.
There were several different editors of the feature over the years, each calling upon friends and neighbors
to contribute to the column. As a holiday gift to its subscribers, The Herald compiled the features into
spiral-bound cookbooks, delivered by the newspaper carriers along with the day's newspaper -- Bob Gauthier, a
newsboy, remembered how heavy the books were, and how hard it was to carry them and get them all delivered.
The booklets were published from 1960 to 1971, and many are still extant in the cupboards and bookcases of
the original readers and their families. The Manchester Historical Society also sells copies of them in its
Museum Store, for $3.00 each.
The Herald was sold, on November 8, 1971, and while the
"Your Neighbor's Kitchen" feature continued, the new owner no longer published the booklets, which is why
the series of books ends in that year. You can browse "post booklet" articles in the Herald, for example, this article in the March 17,
1982 edition of the Herald, which you can access by clicking
In 2013, Kathy Williams created an index of recipe names, and in 2020, Noreen Cullen created an index of
cooks' names with location of their recipes. And then, seeing the interest in finding old recipes and
reconnecting with a relative, friend, or neighbor, our website creative team undertook the project of digitizing
the booklets. Many thanks to Noreen Cullen for conducting research and proposing the project, to Rick Franzosa
for donating the booklets, to Bob Gauthier for scanning and providing searchability, to Jim Hall for designing
the website access to the books.
What a great resource � whether or not you're a cook!
In addition to the books, the Neighbor's Kitchen feature can be found in the Manchester Herald
archives on this website, which can be accessed by clicking
Enjoy this fun new source of vintage information from Manchester's past.
� Susan Barlow, Webmaster and Town Historian, August 2020