17 Taste of Home

There were two premiere issues of Taste of Home, one a premiere newsstand issue, Vol. 1, no. 2, April/May 1993 (cover is May/93) and the other called simply Premiere Edition 1993 (2). They have different covers and different content. This magazine features practical, down home recipes, with ingredients most cooks have on hand. It includes step-by-step instructions and special articles on frugal recipes, cooking for diabetics, brown bags, picnics, collecting, using herbs, using garden produce, and regional and seasonal favorites. The newsstand copy says

Putting out the first issue of a new magazine is a lot like putting your first meal on the table for your in-laws. Your stomach is a little tight. . . Our whole staff was like a bunch of new brides when we mailed the first issue. . .to people throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Of course, this is a magazine that boasts of being edited by a thousand country cooks. I have a subscription to this magazine, and that is still the policy 12 years later. There are removable pages in Taste of Home that can be cut apart into recipe cards. Of course, I wouldn’t do that, but I have photocopied some, and used the “Favorite Broccoli Salad” on p. 37 many, many times.

I got these first issues from Ruth, who turns 90 this year and lives in my home town in Illinois. She used to work for a magazine fulfillment agency and apparently also liked first issues and gave me her copies. She had also visited Reiman Publications in Wisconsin, the publisher of a number of glossy, nostalgic magazines. Ruth and my father grew up on adjoining farms in Pine Creek, Illinois, and her nephew and I were neighbors when we were little.

Taste of Home; the magazine edited by a thousand country cooks!
Premiere Edition 1993 (2)
April/May 1993, Vol. 1, No. 2, Premiere Newsstand Issue
ISSN: 1071-5878 (supplied)
Canadian GST No. R123204331
Subject: Cooking
Publication schedule, bimonthly
Reiman Publications
5400 S. 60th St.
Greendale WI 53129
$2.95; $16.98/year
http://www.reimanpub.com
Food editor: Mary Beth Jung
Senior Editor: Bob Ottum
Publisher: Roy Reiman