Old Cookbooks

Oh, Kate. I just can’t keep me from asking…

Do you, too, sit around every spare minute and read cookbooks like some people drill through novels and romance stories???

One of my all time favorite childhood memories is a rural cooking radio show, broadcast from KMA in Shenandoah, Iowa, the home of Henry Fields and the Driftmier family. My mother listened to it every single morning at 9 o’clock and wrote the recipes they shared on anything from a soup can label to an envelope pulled from the trash can. And I have a collection of their magazines that my Mother waited for earnestly every month. The Driftmiers were literally part of our family, though we never once met them face-to-face.

THEN, they published them into my Kitchen Klatter Cookbook, which was given to me on my 16th birthday. It is a forever treasurer amongst my goldmine of other cookbooks that lives on long after my mother is gone.

And that’s exactly the way I feel about your “The Art of The Pie”! I feel like you’ve become a part of my family. Thank you again and again.

Hi Kate,

The blue tablecloth is just like one I have found in our local market in Southern France – they have many more different variations on that kind of design here!! Like you, I cannot resist flea markets and second-hand cookery books – gotta love them!

Well, it looks like I found a long distance soul mate! I rarely tumble across estate sales, but I often find used book sales lurking either at a library fundraiser or out in town somewhere….they’re so fun.

Old cookbooks and 1930’s-40’s mysteries are my downfall. I simply cannot pass them up.

Another book treasure was given to me by my father in the 1950’s when I was a little girl – a red leather bound book, inscribed on the cover in gold is my name and “A Collection of Mother’s Favorite Recipes”. My mother wrote her recipes in the book and I feel so lucky to have it!

I love cookbooks but I am a collector of recipes from magazines, newspapers and where ever else I find them and have cooked them all at least one time. I have been doing this for 35 years and find nothing better than sitting down and perusing them and one day I will put them in some type of order and find some type of book to put them into (been saying this for probably 30yrs). I have never shared this with any beside my family.
Thank you for allowing me to share this confession

Cookbooks! If my budget allowed I’d really be in trouble…every bookshelf would be full of them, but my tiny farmhouse/bungalow is bursting at the seams. Give me a rainy afternoon at Half Price Books with a stack I somehow have to narrow down to an acceptable purchase…both a thrill at finding treasure and the agony of leaving some behind. I tell myself it’s okay because some other treasure seeker will be able to find their needle in a haystack. I love the ones with an inscription…a cookbook to bless a marriage or a birthday. Books are my weakness, and cookbooks are especially hard to pass up! Love that tablecloth, too!

When I was single and before I had the luxury of retirement, one of my favorite things to do on a blustery, snowy evening after long work hours was a quick, simple, dinner from tasty leftovers in the fridge. Then I’d gather two or three (or four) cookbooks from my shelves, run a lovely hot bath in the old cast iron claw-foot bathtub, brew a cup of tea or pour a petite glass of sherry, place those essentials on the little table by the tub, and climb in. Bracing the books on my homemade shelf straddling the tub from side to side, I’d slide into the water, sip and browse and soak until it finally was lukewarm. By then, the cup was empty, the old favorite books pleasantly revisited, and I was pretty well a relaxed lump of protoplasm. Wrapped in favorite flannel pajamas, I’d barely make it to bed, to snuggle in with the cats, and to dream of happy hours in the kitchen. Ah, bliss . . .

I’m a glutton for them too!!! So much scope for the imagination to be found in those sales. 🙂

I love old cookbooks and old magazines. Love this post Kate 🙂

I was lucky enough to inherit my Great-Grandmother’s and subsequently my Grandmother’s copy of the “Fannie Farmer Cookbook” – amongst the many cookbooks in my collection – it holds a special place in my heart. Happy Thanksgiving Kate!

This post speaks to my heart, and my pocketbook. Although I’m not retired, I live in a resort/retirement town in southwest Florida, which usually means that every weekend there are numerous estate sales. Some are modest, some not so much. My favorites are the comfortable homes that obviously belonged to well traveled, well educated retirees. Books, books, books! Hand knotted Asian rugs! Honest to goodness real wooden, well made furniture that I could never afford on my salary. I am so grateful to these people for the opportunity to carry on with things their families may not care for, or have room for.

Sometimes their cookbook collections will be the types that claim to reverse heart disease or diabetes, but every so often I find a real gem. Larousse Gastronomique, a signed copy of the Antoinette Pope cooking school cookbook, old Sunset or Southern Living books, Susan Purdy’s As Easy As Pie. I have one with the notation “excellent” written near the title of a recipe, it also has “that’s your opinion” just below. I love these handwritten notes, they’re worth more to me than any pristine first edition.

Kate, I can just see your delight with a new (old) treasure from an estate sale. I still have warm, happy memories from our time together with Glynda in your lovely cottage last summer. I will take my signed copy of “Art of the Pie” to Raleigh next week to teach our grand daughter how to make a wonderful pie. Thought you might enjoy this (rather long) piece sent to me by a book club friend who shares my love for Washington state:

Perfect for Any Occasion

Alberto Ríos, 1952

1. Pies have a reputation.
And it’s immediate—no talk of potential

Regarding a pie. It’s good
Or it isn’t, but mostly it is—sweet, very sweet

Right then, right there, blue and red.
It can’t go to junior college,

Work hard for the grades,
Work two jobs on the side.

It can’t slowly build a reputation
And a growing client base.

A pie gets one chance
And knows it, wearing as makeup

Those sparkling granules of sugar,
As a collar those diamond cutouts

Bespeaking Fair Day, felicity, contentment.
I tell you everything is great, says a pie,

Great, and fun, and fine.
And you smell nice, too, someone says.

A full pound of round sound, all ahh, all good.
Pies live a life of applause.

2. But then there are the other pies.
The leftover pies. The ones

Nobody chooses at Thanksgiving.
Mincemeat? What the hell is that? people ask,

Pointing instead at a double helping of Mr. “I-can-do-no-wrong” pecan pie.

But the unchosen pies have a long history, too.
They have plenty of good stories, places they’ve been—

They were once fun, too—
But nobody wants to listen to them anymore.

Oh sure, everybody used to love lard,
But things have changed, brother—things have changed.

That’s never the end of the story, of course.
Some pies make a break for it—

Live underground for a while,
Doing what they can, talking fast,

Trying to be sweet pizzas, if they’re lucky.
But no good comes of it. Nobody is fooled.

A pie is a pie for one great day. Last week,
It was Jell-O. Tomorrow, it’ll be cake.

Originally published in The Dangerous Shirt (Copper Canyon Press, 2009). Copyright © by Alberto Ríos. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

Alberto Ríos

Born in 1952, Alberto Ríos is the inaugural state poet laureate of Arizona and the author of many poetry collections, including A Small Story about the Sky (Copper Canyon Press, 2015). In 1981, he received the Walt Whitman Award for his collection Whispering to Fool the Wind (Sheep Meadow Press, 1982). He currently serves as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

I feel the same way about old cookbooks! I love them! My dad has done most of the dirty work by stopping and buying everything at garage sales for the last 40 years… then storing it all in a huge warehouse for me! Last time I was there I found cookbooks from the 19th century!