I have a 1971 reprint of Hersheys 1934 Cookbook. The original recipes were updated and reprinted. I used to use it alot back in the 70's, but haven't made anything from it in quite some time.

I do rummage thru books at garage sales and occasionally find a treasure for under a buck. I got my Silver Palate Cookbook in the used book section at our local bookstore for cheap.

Linda

Linda

I have my mom's copy of The Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer, 7th edition, from the 1940s. It is complete with some hand written recipes done by my mom on the end papers and some scribbling done by my little sister.

Mom was going through her cookbooks a few years ago and decided to get rid of most of them. I don't know what brought that on because she still cooks everyday now. But I managed to save this one book from the library sale.

Quite a few old cookbooks on my shelves. I have all my DGM recipe collection and most of my DM's. There's one from Detroit Public Schools that my DM used in Home Ec. I also have most of the Farm Journal series of cookbooks. The Farm Journal was a farmers magazine that had a section for farm wives. They began in the 50's, publishing a "Country Cook Book" which sold so well that they went on to publishing a series of more item specific books. I still refer to several on a regular basis.

I also have copies of some of the older standards, Betty Crocker, Fannie Farmer, Good Housekeeping. New York Times, etc. I was a sales rep for a publishing Co when the first Martha Stewart books came out they are fun to look at.

Going to have to unload a bunch one of these days, I just don't need so many, over 700 a couple of years ago, and I keep adding new....addiction!

Nancy

I have lots of old cookbooks (which may indicate I'm becoming "vintage" myself!).

A Gold Medal Flour cookbook from 1917, a Bakers Chocolate from 1918, a Fleischmann's Yeast booklet from 1922, a "Corn Products" (Mazola, Argo cornstarch, Karo syrup) booklet from the same era.

Several WWII "cookbooklets" on cooking to support the war effort and rationing.

Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook, 1950. Joy of Cooking, 1952.

Ball and Kerr canning books, 1950's. Farm Journal cookbooks, many. Old Sunset cookbooks, all Dolores Casella's bread books, 1960's.

Some I don't look at very often anymore, but I sure enjoy them when I do.

Carol

Donna, I also have a copy of The Little House on the Prairie Cookbook. The one I want to get my hands on is the Anne of Green Gables cookbook.

I have two big old cookbooks dating back to WW2. One is a Good Housekeeping Cookbook and the other The American Woman's Cook Book. Both are brick thick. I have used the former but not the latter. I also have The Spice Cookbook, dating back to the fifties. So many of the baking recipes in that one call for a cake mix of one kind or another that I have been unable to make some rather interesting recipes I have found in it.

On my upcoming visit to the US I would like to find a copy of The Joy of Cooking. Not the newest edition, but one of the old ones.

I still have my old Grade 7 Home Ec cookbook which was printed in 1947. When I went to school in B.C. Canada, it was customary to rent textbooks, not buy them and my Home Ec Manual was a well used one by the time it was issued to me. As it was in such a lamentable condition I was able to buy it cheaply at the end of that year. It still has useful basic recipes and techniques to which I sometimes refer.
Looks like I'd better get it to a bookbinder if I want to pass it on to another generation as a keepsake.
Here it is:

And the contents:

They certainly didn't dwell on desserts then did they!

SharonCb

Interesting...wonder what "hot breads" are as opposed to just "breads?"

OTOH, the Boston Cooking School book (1945) listed 50 Basic Recipes for Students and Beginners and 26 of the 50 recipes were for sweets and desserts!

Many of you have posted titles of old "friends". It's an interesting study to note the changes in cookbooks and ingredients commonly used, methods used for writing recipes, as well as appliances used.

If you love collecting cookbooks, then you'll love the book, "The Gallery of Regrettable Food" by James Lileks. It's comical writer includes highlights from classic American recipe books and is a hoot to go through. I was amazed how many of the featured cookbooks I once had in my collection.

I have the "Little House on the Prairie Cookbook" and this was fun to use with my granddaughter when she read the book series. I have "The Anne of Green Gables Cookbook", and fortunate to have the cookbook by L.M. Montgomery (author of the Ann of Green Gables series) - "Aunt Maud's Recipe Book" by Elaine Crawford & Kelly Crawford. If you are an Anne (with an "e") fan, then you'd love this quaint book and lovely look at the author.

My oldest is "The Young Housekeeper's Friend" by Mrs. Cornelius - 1859. Several recipes include different types of homemade yeast for making bread - Soft Hop Yeast, Dry Yeast (made with hops) and Potato Yeast. None of the recipes (or receipts as they are called in the book) are a list of ingredients followed by instructions, like we use now. It's a rambling dialogue of instruction interjected with ingredient amounts.

Fried Biscuit
"Work a piece of butter the size of an egg into a large pint of light bread dough. When it has risen again, roll it very thin, cut it into circles or squares, and fry them for breakfast. Eat them with salt, or with cider and sugar. All crullers and doughnuts are much more healthful fried in clarified drippings of roast meat, than in lard; and it is, besides, good economy."

Other oldies - "Official Recipe Book" March 1918 (WWI - What to eat and how to cook it - produced by the State Council of Defense.

"Victory Cook Book" WWII Simple recipes that save ration points...

What I want to know.... when was the last time anyone made Tomato Aspic Salad to go along with their Kidney Stew or Braised Oxtail???

I have a text book from 1939 I purchased at the estate auction of a favorite local Home Economics teacher. "Practical Cookery and The Ettiquette and Service of the Table" Department of Food Economics and Nutrition - Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Sciencd (now Kansas State University). Those loaves of bread pictured in the book would never get a blue ribbon at any fair I was judging foods...(LOL) I have the feeling the flour milling industry, as well as wheat varieties, is much better, as well as the yeast products. Dried yeast wasn't available until after WWII.

For recent history, my cookbooks from the 1990's, I've noticed how many of them are low-fat. That was the noteworthy thing about that era of books.

I remember when:

-stand-alone freezers were the big thing to own back in the late 1950's early 1960's, and I have cookbooks dedicated to information for freezing foods and recipes using them. When I was a kid (born 1952), the freezer compartment of our 1951 refrigerator (bought used) was about 1-foot square. My parents used that refrigerator until 1989 and then their grandson used it.

-I got my first microwave in 1979 and our son still uses it. Did anyone ever really use it for cooking or baking - or in reality - melting butter, popping popcorn and re-heating leftovers....

-Tupperware made it's appearance by the proud owner at a church supper in the late 1950's, and soon after that all our mom's were going to parties at each other's homes in the afternoon to purchase ice tea tumblers and those enormous salt and pepper shakers. That lead to a whole group of Tupperware-related recipes.

-pineapple up-side-down cake became popular when Hawaii became a state in 1959

-Jif peanut butter, Tang, Chex cereal, and freeze-dried coffee were introduced - and they have all been incorporated in cooking/baking

Fun stuff...

-Grainlady

I checked that out Teresa....here's what they call "Hot Breads":
Griddle cakes, pop-overs, waffles, muffins(8 recipes), nut bread, Boston brown bread, baking powder biscuits, fruit rolls, strawberry shortcake and apple buns.

Under Breads....comes a discussion on yeast, then white bread using sponge ...(soft dough), graham bread, yeast bread without sponge, plain rolls, parker house rolls. And that completes the section on bread LOL.

The Dessert section consists of those old recipes I remember from my childhood: custards and custard pie, floating island, bread & butter pudding with variations with lemon and chocolate, trifle, rice pudding, tapioca, blanc mange, lemon snow, junket, carrot pudding and brown betty. I remember we made brown betty in Home Ec cooking, as well as a spicy chutney which turned out quite well.
And I remember my mom making junket with those tablets. People in Spain were making junket in the first years I was here in the late 1960s.
I don't think I ever liked it.

SharonCb

I also have a lot of old cookbooks, including those Farm Journal cookbooks of Grandma's and my favorite "go to" cookbook, the 1969 version of Betty Crocker.

Nancy, did you know that Irma Rombauer's Joy of Cooking was written here in Michigan in large part, very near your house on Lake Charlevoix? Mario Batali spends summers and holidays at his house near Grand Traverse and says it's an "antidote to Manhattan". LOL Maybe we should get together and invite him to dinner.

Annie

I have a dozen Boston Cooking School Cook Books 1906 through 1946. I also have The Boston Cook Book 1904 edition by Mary J. Lincoln and Us Two Cookbook by Jennie B. Williams, 1909. Have several of the early Pillsbury Bake-Off cookbook(lets) including the first one (1950) which I found at an estate sale several years ago for a quarter. I have most of the Farm Journal cookbooks, too.

I love my old Farm Journal cookbooks. Also have the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook that is bound in red check, like a tablecloth. I use these the most. I find most of my cookbooks at garage sales. Several of the ones I have really enjoyed and used are:

Long Lost Recipes of Aunt Susan by Patty Vineyard McDonald. Aunt Susan had a radio cooking school. It's a good read and great recipes from back when nothing was "instant".

Seems Like I Done it This-away by Cleo Stiles Bryan (Ozark and Country cooking). Cleo was a home-economist who got her love of cooking from her mother, who, when asked how she made something, always said, "Seems like I done it this-away".

Make-A-Mix Cookery by Karine Eliason, Nevada Harward & Madeline Westover. I also have MORE Make-A-Mix Cookery.

Amish Cooking, by Pathway Publishing. The Foreword says the recipes are taken from the pages of Family Life Magazine.

I also like those spiral-bound "Favorite Recipes of Home Economics Teachers"

A most recent addition that I have found to be really fun to read, and the recipes, which lean toward the vegetarian side (though they use lots of dairy and eggs) is the Dairy Hollow HOuse Cookbook by Crescent Dragonwagon and Jan Brown. They and their husbands bought a dairy farm near Eureka Springs, AR and converted it to a bed and breakfast.

I have dozens of cookbooks. I am always drawn to them. Another one that I highly recommend if you have a bread machine is Bread Machine Magic by Linda Rehberg & Lois Conway. All the recipes I've tried from that book have been keepers and each recipe has ingredients listed for 1 pound or for 1 and 1/2 pound loaves. Since my machine is for a 2 pound loaf, I just double the 1 pound recipe. There are also recipes for hamburger buns and several kinds of rolls and dessert breads.

Ilene, I have the Make-A-Mix cookbook, autographed...I worked with Karine's son-in-law when I lived in Phoenix!

Annie, no I didn't know that 'joy of Cooking' was written around here. As for Mario, let's invite him to dinner after my kitchen redo. You can work on getting a number or address....LOL

Here's a unique cookbook, not all that old, but I found it somewhere around the time the movie was out. "Bubba Gumps Shrimp Co" cookbook.

Nancy

My mom has this version of the Settlement Cookbook that came from my great grandma. Besides the many pages that my grandma book marked for recipes she made, there are many old newspaper and magazine clippings for recipes. This will be handed down to my daughter and granddaughter.

Here is a link that might be useful: Settlement Cookbook

Ilene, I'm pretty familiar with the Bread Machine cookbook that you speak of - Linda Rehberg's sister lives here in San Diego County, and was part of FidoNet's Cooking forum when the book came out. Debbie told us that she helped with the testing of many of those recipes. I got a few low-fat bread recipes from one of the books, just recently. One is "Ken's Light White Bread"....yum!

It's nice to see that a few are familiar with the Little House cookbook. I bought it because at the time, I was teaching 3rd grade and we were reading one of the Little House book (Big Woods, I believe). I had a small class at the time and brought in one of the recipes for the kids to taste. (Vinegar Pie, if I recall correctly).

To those who love their Betty Crocker cookbooks - I know what you mean. I have TWO. One used to be spiral bound. It's so well loved that it's held together with a rubber band. I believe it's the mid-70s version. Then I bought another one in the 90s, in 3-ring binder form.

I love reading about your old cookbooks -

DonnaR/CA

I have a copy of, "the NEW Fannie Farmer-Boston Cooking-School COOK BOOK", 1953.

My father, in his retirement, took on the care of several Summer homes in Southern Maine. He would check on them during the winter, board up windows against storms, uncover rose gardens when the time was right, deal with emergencies...that kind of thing. During the Summer, when people were in residence, he was sort of a general, all around handyman.

His largest client was old money...there was a beach named after the family, a road named after the family, and a huge home, loaded with antiques that had been the original furnishings.

An elderly Black woman came up every summer from South Carolina to be their cook for the season. Little bittie thing, set in her ways and stubborn as heck, but since she'd been cooking for the family for decades, she knew what they liked and how to manage them.

I had been separated from my father at age 5, and when I found him again in my early 30's, I went out to stay with him and my stepmother for a year to get to know them. He took me down to meet Marguerite. She was a kick, and we got along...several years later, when she knew that she wouldn't be able to make it up again the next season (or ever), she gave my father her Fannie Farmer for me.

It still has a bunch of book marks in it, some with shopping lists, some with her name, some with cryptic notes I can't decipher, all in the same, slanted hand.

I actually use the book quite a bit, but I don't disturb the bookmarks. I sometimes puzzle over the marked pages, wondering which recipe she had marked...

I also have my mother's copy of "The Complete American-Jewish Cookbook",1952. It has a separate section of Passover recipes. There are no pork recipes, naturally. Generally, the cookies and bread recipes are good.

As for unique...I have an Ethiopian cookbook...the only one I've been able to find. "Exotic Ethiopian Cooking-Society, Culture, Hospitality, & Traditions. I've only made a couple of dishes out of it. I love Ethiopian food, and when I found out how much Nit'ir Qibe (purified herb & spice butter) is used in most of the dishes I love, I realized why I love them. For example, in dishes made from 1 pound of ground beef, it is not unusual that they contain a cup of butter. A typical lentil dish pairs 2 cups of lentils with 2 cups of butter.

No wonder I love it!

Somebody said once that to find the best recipes in a particular cookbook you should look for the pages that are spattered and stained. ;)

I think that's interesting that some of you know the authors of some of my favorite cookbooks. I am 61 and have taken early retirement. I really love to putter around in my garden and kitchen but I live with a husband and grandson who are not much on trying new things. Many times if I make something a little different, they aren't crazy about it and will only eat the obligatory one small helping. But if they like it, it's a lot more. And then DH looks at me like I'm an idiot and says, "Well, if you don't want leftovers, make only half the recipe!" You know what, I'm gonna do that, and then when he wants to go back for seconds there won't be any! LOL

the most unique cookbook I have is
Scheherazade Cooks!
By Wadeeha Atiyeh
"For 1001 nights of fabulous dining... tantalizing hors d'oeuvres, exotic entrees & dessers...."
according to this book it wasn't the exciting tales she told, but the exotic dishes she cooked that kept the king from beheading her for 1001 nights.

I have a 1936 Watkins cookbook and a 1941 Watkins Household Hints book. The cookbook doesn't have oven temperatures. It just says bake in a quick oven or moderate oven, etc. You can tell the cookbook was used allot by mom as there are plenty of stained pages and my mom's hand writing where she adjusted a recipe. I remember the Watkins salesman coming to our door about once a month and my mom buying all sorts of products from him. That was a long time ago. I'm not sure if Watkins exist any more.
Teri

I love my old Betty Crocker Boys and Girls' Cookbook. We used to lust over the dessert pictures and now I enjoy watching my kids do the same.
Jo

teri, I don't know if I remember or remember being told about the Watkins spice salemen. At any rate I still use the Watkins recipe for Chili Sauce. K

Last night I made a simple Macaroni and Tomato casserole from The Settlement Cook Book link that blizlady posted above. It was quite good and easy to do. My mom, sisters, and I have a love of combining elbow macaroni with stewed tomatoes, butter, salt, and pepper - a simple combination we grew up with. This recipe was similar in taste but used a roux to thicken the tomato sauce.

Thanks blizlady!

I dont have many old cook books but I have a few from my mother and one from DHÂs grandmother. The most unique cook book I have is a book of recipes from the employees of Walt Disney Studio in Burbank. It is vinyl covered with Minnie on the cover. It was done in 1982 and only sold at the employee store. I remember thinking when I first looked through it that the studio had a bunch of really creative people but really bland cooks. LOL It says itÂs volume one but I donÂt think they ever did another. I quit in 1983 but was somewhat on call for a few years and they used to send me the weekly employee news paper and I never read anything about another cook book.

I donÂt remember the name of the book but my sister bought a really old cook book at a garage sale for 10 cents and sold it on eBay for $82.00

Claudia

I am looking for an old 5x8" Biscuick cookbook that I bought in Junior High. We got it from Home Ec for $1.99 at that time. Yellow & brown hardbound with pictures of cakes, cookies, biscuits on the front. It would be late 50's to early 1961 or so. Lost mine in moving and would love to find another. It had maybe 100 pages or so in it. Can someone make this old senior citizen happy with another copy? Thanks.