History and Cooking - Antique Cookbooks

  Here’s another history geek post for my friends into cooking: This is one of my favorite old cookbooks. It is from 1917, and tells the story of newlyweds Bettina and Bob and their friends over their first year of marriage. Unusually, the cookbook is made up of more than 100 little chapters that present some housekeeping situation with Bettina’s recipes and tips - everything from an unexpected luncheon for Bob’s boss to a Washington’s Birthday tea to Bob “manfully using his st rong right arm” to stir the breakfast popovers batter. I think Bettina hosted more to-do’s over the course of this book than I have in my entire life. She makes Martha Stewart look like a slacker!

  Here’s another history geek post for my friends into cooking: This is the first Betty Crocker cookbook, circa 1950. It’s a first edition “signed” by Betty aka a General Mills secretary. Betty herself is a fictional character used to promote General Mills products. Beautiful hardcover book with mostly black-and-white photos, although a limited number of full-page color photos were sprinkled in. This cookbook ushers in a new era after World War II. Middle-class homemakers had more time and resources to entertain. Also a notable time because more women were entering and staying in the workforce. Because women were needed so badly to work during the war, it was becoming more socially acceptable for a woman to leave the so-called purity of the home to work away from the hearth. For the first time, cookbooks included recipes that saved time and used modern conveniences (appliances such as electric blenders and mixers, store-bought packaged ingredients and prepared food) to help busy ho...

  Here’s another history geek post for my friends into baking: This is the first antique cookbook I ever bought. It’s a promotional recipe book for Ryzon baking powder dated 1916. Hardcover, 82 pages, with about 20 colored drawings, making this a pretty luxurious book for its time. Interesting for two reasons: 1 - baking powder itself was a relatively recent invention - by chemists! - and they had to teach home bakers how to use it instead of traditional leavenings and 2- this comes 10 years after the Food and Drug Act was passed to stop the horrifying hazards that had been unregulated in commercially sold foods (sawdust in bread, for example). This cookbook has a strong emphasis on science and cleanliness in the copy and illustrations.

  This is my other way cool history find from the Walworth County Fair’s used book sale. The publication date on this is 1979 - long before the decision to boycott these games.

  This is kind of a history geek post 😊 ok, it’s completely a history geek post 😄 I have collected old cookbooks most of my life; I love looking at history through them. I found a couple this year at the Walworth County Fair’s used book sale that are too cool to not share. Bakers, check out the subhead on this Pillsbury bread cookbook from 1968 - when instant dry yeast was NEW to the commercial market. I can’t imagine not having it on the pantry shelf.