History and Cooking - Antique Cookbooks

For my friends who like history and cooking, I have the greatest cookie cookbook ever written. Seriously. If you do not already own a copy of this cookbook, you owe it to yourself to pop over to Amazon and order one right now (I checked, and there is a 2002 reprint currently available.) When I was a kid, my mom's copy of the Betty Crocker Cooky Book was the one that I baked from the most. My dad has a sweet tooth, and every week we had something coming out of the oven which never lasted very long around him. I particularly enjoyed baking cakes and cookies, and this cook book has a tremendous variety of recipes. It has my all-time favorite recipes for chocolate brownies, butterscotch brownies, snickerdoodles, chocolate crinkles, and lemon squares (which I later modified into orange squares; substitute orange juice for the lemon juice - it's sublime!).  This book starts out with a "cooky primer" section divided into the six methods of cookies making: drop, bar refrigera...

  For my friends who like history and cooking, I have a real fun one. The General Foods Kitchens Cookbook is from 1959 (436 pages, authorship credited to "The Women of General Foods Kitchens"). It's loaded with full-color, full-page photographs and two-color drawings, and has an unusual square-ish size. I think of this as one of the first "modern" lifestyle cookbooks in its look and feel. (Modern, retro and dated all at once!) It has a marked difference in its approach to handling the recipes, which I think reflects the new prosperity in lifestyle and more leisure time that Americans found in the 1950s.  Instead of grouping similar foods together in chapters (e.g, Meats, Breads, Vegetables), General Foods organizes eight chapters around "everyday and special situations," including family meals, daytime entertaining, parties, meals outdoors, and holidays. Each chapter describes various scenarios under the topic, with sample menus and recipes.  Unique to...

For my friends who like history and cooking comes The White House Cook Book (1900, 590 pages), a thick white tome that has seen several iterations over the decades. I'd bet some of you may have your own copy.  My book is from 1900, the fourth copyrighted version. The original came out in 1887. The co-authors  listed are Hugo Ziemann, a White House steward; and Mrs. F.L. Gillette, whom the publishers note in their foreword "is no less proficient and capable, having made a life-long and thorough study of cookery and housekeeping, especially as adapted to the practical wants of average American homes." This book actually has very little to do with the White House, despite Ziemann's later involvement ( Fanny Gillette is the sole author and copyrighter of the original in 1887).  My 1900 version has full-page black-and-white photos of Ida Saxton McKinley and Frances Folsom Cleveland, with sketched collages of other First Ladies. There is a drawing of the White House kitche...

  For my friends who like history and cooking, I have a curious double book from 1909. This book is actually two books bound together into one volume. The first 740 pages are Household Discoveries  by Sidney Morse, and the concluding 280 pages are Mrs. Curtis's Cook Book  by Isabel Gordon Curtis. The volume was published by Success Magazine in New York, and according to a notice in the front of Household Discoveries  "it is not offered for sale through book stores and can only be obtained of our regular authorized solicitors or from the publishers direct." I have heard of "Salesman Samples:" these special volumes had the complete double book plus information about binding styles and handwritten client notes. "Household Discoveries" is subtitled "An Encyclopaedia of Practical Recipes and Processes" and is dedicated to "the thousands of practical housekeepers, readers of Success Magazine, and others, whose discoveries are embodied in this ...

  For my friends who like history and cooking, AND for my ag friends, I've got a fun one from 1941. Many of us grew up listening to WLS 89 AM radio in the 60s and 70s when it was a Top 40 pop station. But from 1928 until 1960, it actually was owned by Prairie Farmer - yes, the same Prairie Farmer magazine that our farm families read. WLS then was a very popular rural-oriented station, complete with livestock reports and cooking shows. This cookbook (hard cover, 310 pages) was  published by Prairie Farmer Magazine (aka The Prairie Press) and was a compilation of recipes by its on-air personalities, from its listeners, and from university ag extensions. I believe that the "Centennial Edition" on the cover refers to Prairie Farmer celebrating its 100th anniversary (it dates back to 1841). This cookbook has a little bit of everything. Unusually this cookbook has photos of its staff contributors. It also has some photos of dishes and credit lines for listeners who contributed ...

  For my friends who like history and cooking, I have a nondescript thick gray cookbook from 1943 with a fascinating story behind it. Can you imagine a time when it wasn't socially acceptable for a man to be known as a chef? Other than Escoffier, the only famous male cook during the first half of last century was the Mystery Chef. He was a Scottish immigrant named John MacPherson, who parlayed his enjoyment of cooking into hosting a national radio program for more than 20 year s. He also wrote several cookbooks and had a TV show for a season. It's probably fair to say he helped pave the way for today's celebrity chefs. His alias came about because he claimed his mother was embarrassed that her son liked the unmasculine activity of cooking. In his book, he actually advocates quite a bit for men to "find pleasure and relaxation in the art of excellent cooking." This book is unusual in that it doesn't have a single drawing or photograph. But, the Mystery Chef...

  For my friends who like history and cooking, and in honor of the 4th of July, here’s a little gem from 1943. The government had some propaganda work to do to convince citizens to go to war again so soon after WWI, and booklets like this played a role in keeping patriotism and morale up as the war dragged on. Sacrifice then was considered honorable for the greater good. On a personal note, I’ve entered antique shows with my cookbooks only twice. I entered this one in the 1993 McHenry County Fair and it won a Best of Show. (I entered another one in the Walworth County Fair the following year, and the superintendents of that show damaged it with their poor handling practices. Because of that experience, I will not enter any more antiques in any show.)