Vintage Cookbooks

[BakerAunt]

An email from Taste contained this story about vintage cookbooks:

Vintage Cookbook Collecting Is Often Kind, Sometimes Cutthroat, and Now Extremely Online

Of course, most of the cookbooks mentioned are not ones that would be on my shelf. I also think that "vintage" is in the eye of the beholder, as most of the cookbooks mentioned here are faddish. However, many older cookbooks have great recipes, so I need to start browsing my shelves more often.

Spread the word

      

  

  

[Mike Nolan]

I suspect most of my cookbooks fall more into the 'useful' category than the 'collectible' category, but it is nice to think there might be a demand for a few of them when I'm gone.

[Joan Simpson]

I have some old cookbooks too.

[RiversideLen]

If you're interested in vintage, going back before we were born, there is a guy on YouTube who has a large collection, and he makes dishes from the books. If the book is old enough, he has to research what some of the terms and measurements meant back then. Sometimes the recipe is just a list of ingredients trusting that the cook knew how to cook and put it all together. He also has some old drink books and sometimes he makes cocktails from it. I find it fairly interesting.

If anyone is interested in it, the channel is Glen and Friends.

[BakerAunt]

Thanks, Len. I'll have to check it out.

I have some older cookbooks that belonged to my husband's mother and grandmother. One has recipes for cooking pigeons. I will pass on that one!

[navlys]

I had Martha Stewart's "Entertaining " cookbook.Nice pictures but not nice recipes. Away it went.

[Mike Nolan]

A few years ago my wife brought hone a book from the UNL library that had recipes from the 1800's. The bread recipe started with "Grind up a peck of wheat"...

[BakerAunt]

I'm wondering about doing a group challenge here at Nebraska Kitchen where a couple of times a year or so, we each grab a cookbook that has been sitting on our shelves and cook or bake a recipe from it that is new to us, even if we do some modifications of it.

[navlys]

BA that sounds like fun. My husband just pointed out to me that I still have quite a few cookbooks in our cabinet. They were the ones I couldn't part with.

[Mike Nolan]

A cookbook challenge could be fun, we could alternate between breads, savory (main courses or sides) and sweet items. Let's hash out the details and then plan to pick the first one by the end of October and see if a monthly schedule works, even through the holiday season.

[RiversideLen]

I'd be interested too.

[skeptic7]

I have a very old Joy of Cooking. Thats an interesting challenge. Recently when I wanted to expand my horizons, I find an ingredient and then look for recipes. Before the pandemic I got some rye flour at the Coop and then looked for recipes. I found how very different rye flour is than wheat flour and how some of my ideas on bread baking were totally wrong for rye.

[Mike Nolan]

There was a time I when I was trying to collect all the major revisions of The Joy of Cooking, but I gave up in the 90's because, quite honestly, I though the latter revisions weren't as good. I haven't looked at a recent edition in over a decade.

I use my 1943 and 1946 editions the most. I have one edition from the 1930's, it is not in good shape. I don't have a first edition (they're very rare and expensive) but it has been reissued. I've been told that the original author didn't actually cook most of the recipes in any of the editions she put out in her lifetime, though I've found them pretty reliable over the years.

IMHO, that's one big difference between The Joy of Cooking and Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child and her co-authors tested every recipe in the book many times. The 2nd volume goes into great lengths on her attempts to make authentic French baguettes from American flours. (Her autobiography goes even a bit further.)

[BakerAunt]

I think the main courses category is going to be hard for me, so I'd better start looking now. My cookbook shelves are heavy on the baking category.

[Mike Nolan]

I think breads and desserts will be harder for me, because they can require a LOT of changes to be more carb-friendly.

[Author]

Posts