Seven decades of history were displayed at the Wandering CWA including the club’s 90-year-old popular cookbook

Seven decades of Country Women’s Association history was showcased in a Wheatbelt town, including an almost 90-year-old cookbook. Among the Shire of Wandering’s 150th festivities, the town’s CWA celebrated its 70th anniversary by running the oldest CWA cookery book competition. Dual winners, CWA president Jacquie Cornish and former member Marge Carstairs, owned a 1940 publication. Dressed by the decades, the CWA room was decorated with memorabilia such as CWA country women magazines, tea towels, photo albums and numerous crafts donated by CWA members to honour the double-anniversary on September 14. The pair presented a near-original cookbook as the first State CWA cookbook launched in 1936. Imperial to metric measurements are the only changes from the 1930s to the current 2024 edition. In commemoration, the ladies republished the only Wandering CWA cookbook from 1984 and added their new members’ recipes to the new publication. Ms Cornish said her copy was passed down by her mother-in-law and in her 66 years in the CWA the infamous “blue cookbook is a go-to” because it is filled with “practical recipes that don’t cost you an arm and a leg”. “If that was the only cookbook you had in your house you couldn’t go wrong,” she said. “The members’ children that get married, we give them a CWA cookbook as a wedding present. “The blue cookbook is what’s been known since 1936, everyone wants a cookbook like their grandma had.” For her 66 years of service, Ms Cornish was handed a certificate of appreciation by vice-president Deonne Kingsford, continuing the celebrations. “There’s always been a member of the Cornish family in the Wandering CWA since it began in 1954,” Ms Cornish said.