My mother use to collect them for years, going all the way back to the 1950's. I don't know what happened to them after she died. I would have liked some of the older ones. I look for interesting ones at the thrift stores. Like you said, they are filled with TNT recipes. And some of those recipes are strictly local or very old and hard to find in the big name cookbooks.
Clare

I think that some of them - like the one you mention - can be a great source of history and regional recipes, depending on the organization and where it's located. I always check them out in local bookstores when traveling.

But the typical ones (e.g. put together by the local PTA) seem to contain the same old rehashed, "semi-homemade" recipes. I appreciate that folks are trying to raise money, but there's nothing special about the cookbook that makes me want to pay for it or have it take up space on my shelf.

Sue

I have a bunch of them and helped to edit three such cookbooks. Just today I looked at my church cookbook from the early '70s and wondered if I need to get it re-bound at Office Depot - it's practically falling apart.

Some are better than others, that's true. But my 2 church books are very dear to my heart, as much for the people in the recipes as the recipes themselves.

Teresa

I totally agree with goldgirl. For instance, the Three Rivers Cookbooks. The early ones contain some great ethnic and regional recipes that won't be found in standard cookbooks.

I have enjoyed quite a few, some from my mother, some from vacations and most from the places I've lived. I do glance at any before buying to see if it's interesting.

They are like a piece of life's history and one of these days I will see if any of the younger generation in my family want them. I don't use any of the recipes on a regular basis anymore. The newest ones I have bought to support the organization that is trying to raise money by publishing them.

Nancy

I have mixed feelings...they do contain tried and true recipes, and presumably people don't submit their failures. However, the reality is many of them are poorly edited and leave out ingredients or steps or useful info that make a recipe successful.

I still have a book put out by the Colorado Junior League in the early 80's. That cookbook has some real gems in it!

I have two of the Denver Junior League cookbooks too, Colorado Cache and Creme de Colorado that have some interesting recipes. I also have two from the Buddhist church of a Japanese friend and one from my MIL's Russian church. I have some from other friends - all have some great recipes and some I just pass by. There are happy memories with all of them.

I don't think I've ever purchased one though.

I love to go to ethnic festivals or street fairs where little old ladies who have made a certain recipe for fifty years are in charge of the food--you're fairly sure it's gonna be authentic and probably very good. (About a month ago there was a Greek Orthodox church nearby that had a Greek festival. Man, the food was good!) I think a cookbook with a strong ethnic orientation would more likely have some good/useful stuff in it than some homogenous group of citizens submitting their favorite recipes.

A couple of Junior League cookbooks that were used in my family while I was growing up: 'River Road Recipes', by the Baton Rouge Junior League, and 'Talk about Good!' by the Lafayette group. Both are good. They published a lot of copies of those, and even though I live several hundred miles from Louisiana these days I often see copies in used book stores, and occasional new copies in regular book stores.

Jr. League cookbooks are the best....thinking of Beyond Parsley....don't remember what Jr League did it but it's a good one.
And I have a couple of Symphony fund raiser cookbooks which are very good!
Lots of little church cookbooks anymore and, as someone said, more about quick and easy rather than "As grandmother did it".
Linda C

I have The Eastern Junior League cookbook from at least 25 years ago. The recipes are so reliable.

I also have one that my library did about 30 years ago. It has some of my favorite recipes. Every one was tested before it was put in the book. They were reprinted a few years ago and did not sell well. I think attitudes towards cooking have changed. They are for sale for $1 now!

I also have one that was put together in my mother's home town. It is dreadful, full of recipes that call for a can of this and a can of that, topped with a container of Cool Whip. Yuck.

The ladies group at a big hospital in town is just releasing a cookbook now. I wonder how it will sell. I just think the day for those cookbooks is past, since it is so easy to find recipes on the internet.

I do love looking at the names of the women who donated recipes to my library cookbook. Some are still around and others have moved away. Makes me wonder how they are doing.

My best buy, ever!
Several weeks before my DH's birthday, I went into a used book store and found one of those local cookbooks entitled Copper Country Recipes.....for $2. This was about 15 years ago and DH is 81.
I looked inside and saw it was recipes from my DH's home town in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Upon reading the recipes, I found names I had heard my in-laws talk about at length.
He was so surprised and so happy and now I have lots of recipes he grew up with.
His favorite is the Christmas cookies....Rocks.

I have a lot of community cookbooks. I pick them up when I travel and grab local books at craft fairs. Part of my job is to sift through donations (somebody's gotta do it)and I pick up some real treasures (and duds) from our Friends of the Library used book sales. I always get there first,...I have the key, hehe.

Pam, I worked on the third printing of a library cookbook that was done by the Library Club in 1948. They reprinted in 1988 and we added recipes and pictures ten years later. I was thrilled to find one of the originals on eBay in a lot of three for $10.

This post was edited by katiec on Sun, Nov 25, 12 at 23:04

For me, it really depends on the cookbook itself. I have several of these types. One is full of recipes that were on the backs of cans and boxes of convenience foods -- hardly what I call "original". Others have recipes from family friends, several of whom have left the world. Those are the treasured, especially since some of my MIL's favorite recipes were included (and she's now gone).

Donna

I'm a sucker for these DIY cookbooks. I'd much rather buy a cookbook to support some worthy cause than a coupon book. True, they are hit-and-miss regarding recipe quality, but you never can tell where you will find some gems. One of the best I got was from my kiddoe's grade school. My cousin gave me another good one put together by the staff at the hospital where she worked. She contributed several recipes our grandma used to make, recipes that were lost in my end of the family.

I enjoy reading them. They're often full of Green Bean Casserole and Tater Tot Hotdish but occasionally there's a tip or two, a new idea or just entertaining reading.

I love to read recipe books/cookbooks more so than a novel so I pick them up at garage sales and thrift shops for about 50 cents. Just recently I got this very very old one I thought would be real neat...it was SO BAD that apparently no one even read through the recipes before printing them up! HA! The recipes were so badly written, most of them, that they didn't even make any sense at all! I've been more disappointed in them than happy...that's my opinion. Usually I end up just taking them to the thrift shop and putting them back on the shelf...HA!

I have a cookbook form a local church made in the 1930's....recipes with a "Knob of butter" and a $.10 can of tuna...I had 2 of them, found at auctions and gave the best one to someone who is a long standing member of the church, who's mother wrote some of the recipes.

And another favorite is a "cookies and bars" from someone in my church who put it together as a fundraiser. Lots of really good and unusual cookies and bars in there! I need to spend a few cold winter evenings putting it into digital form.

During my years of business travel I collected this genre of cookbooks; they were my souvenirs of where I had worked. I wrote the date inside of each and would read them cover to cover on the plane home marking recipes of interest.

I ended up with a 800+ culled them down to 400 and now I am torn about what to do with them.

One of my keepers is "Pirates Pantry: Junior League of Lake Charles LA" because years later I met our dear CF friend RiverRat. Karen and I became good friends and I found out that I worked with her mother when I was working in Lake Charles...the old "small world" thing.

It bugs me about what I'm going to do with all these books of semi-sentimental value.

LindaC, I have "Cornsilk" from Iowa. I'm betting I have or had a Jr League book from a lot of your home towns.

I had a collection of local books from a large section of school groups, churches, Fraternal Chapters, etc. going back to the 19-teens's and I donated them to the local historical museum.

The problem comes using them without MAJOR editing. We no longer feed a family of 6-10, so recipes might need to be reduced in size to make 4-6 servings. Some ingredients are no longer available, or they are no longer in the same sizes due to several down-sizes over the past decade or so. A can of tuna today is 5-oz. and I remember it being as high as 7-1/2 oz. A cake mix is much smaller and the recipe may not work because of that. A "sleeve of graham crackers" are much smaller. Canned goods of all kinds once were 16-oz. There are recipes that call for a "can of coconut" because it came in a small can rather than a plastic bag. Anyone know how much was in a can? "Can of Hershey's Syrup" - it came in a small can and a large can.

-Grainlady

The Ursuline convent in New Orleans put out a very interesting cookbook, I think in the early 1970s, but I no longer have a copy of it. It was interesting to read and had good explanations for some of the ingredients. I also liked the recipes that I made from it.

I recommend it if you are a collection of old or regional cookbooks.

Lars

A lovely lady and good friend, who works at the local hospital, gave me a book of recipes they had published from employees of the hospital. I looked through it and realized why the employees were so heavy. Trash canned it after the first review.

Sometimes those books are wonderful, and other times ......

One of my favorite is from a relative that her church--7th Day Adventist made. All homemade vegetarian ones and so good.

The single most valued cookbook in my collection is one put together by my paternal Grandmother's church in the 60's. Not so much for the recipes, but because they were contributed by relatives long gone now.

LindaC - thanks for the recommendation of "Beyond Parsley" by the KC Jr. League - I had eyed it on eBay and now will probably go ahead and buy it.

The Jr. League in my hometown (Panama City, FL) put together one called "Bay Leaves" that is excellent also.

I think they are very valuable. The TnT recipes are from local cooks. It makes the cookbook a "library" of regional favorites. Wayne and I both have recipes published in our town's Police Explorers fundraiser cookbooks. Besides recipes they offer measurement equivalents, substitutions, how to get rid of stains,etc. Very helpful info, and a good read too. The cooks tell how they came about the recipes, how long they have been making the dish. My mom would always buy the Lutheran ladies' church cookbook. She gave them to me a few years ago. All were from the 70's. They were stapled together, not wire bond. From very simple, to the more complex recipes. The pictures inside were hand drawn, no snapshots. I love them. NancyLouise