Old Cookbooks
Estate sales are my downfall. I’m one of those ladies who rightly should have the “Stops at Yard Sales” bumper sticker on the back of her car…but, I don’t. I’ll just confess it all to you here that I love to go treasure hunting at sales. I love looking at old stuff and deciding what I might need or not. Most often it’s “not” because I really don’t need anything more.
But then there was this weekend…
It’s a Saturday.
I’m on my way to the farmer’s market. I see the sign. I say to myself…
I will not stop. I will not stop. There’s nothing more that I need. I will not stop. I will go to the market. I will go home right after.
I get a great parking space right by the market, buy eggs and veggies, and put them in the car.
And then…can you guess? I walk to the estate sale that is just one block away in an empty store front. The displays of merchandise are set up so beautifully. So easy to get snagged. Who might need this book on College Typing? No one I know. But, it’s so cool. I love that blue.
It’s just like the blue in the expensive Italian tablecloths I’ve seen in stores but could never bring myself to buy. Like the one right over there. It looks brand new and would fit my round table perfectly and look just right with my yellow enamelware coffee pot on top. Gotta have it, right? 
Then there are old cookbooks. I’m pretty good about only picking up one if it is a collector’s item. I do love reading the wonderful descriptions and sage advice missing from our newer books.
For example these words from Mrs. DeGraf’s Cook Book (1922):
For those who have no oven regulator, and who experience difficulty in managing the oven, I would suggest purchasing an oven thermometer. It will soon pay for itself in the saving of food…
Careless measuring of salt will render a dish most unpleasant, if not entirely useless.
Most failures in cooking can be traced to careless measuring, not following the recipe accurately, or lack of proper heat regulation.
Mrs. DeGraf- I couldn’t agree with you more. I even wrote a blog about recipe accuracy. Did you know that? But your words below are my absolute favorites, Mrs. De Graf:
And how the children love cookies or cakes which have been made especially for them! The mother who is always too busy or lacks the imagination and skill to cater to children: who never makes wonderful animal cookies or fat, dumpy gingerbread and doughnut men, has really deprived her offspring of untold pleasure. Not only the eating of these mysterious, delightful creations, but to stand and watch them being made and to wait impatiently what seems ages before these miracles come out of the oven, all brown and fragrant. The memory of these childish joys is never forgotten.
I so remember waiting…impatiently…for these miracles! And for those words evoking a memory of childish joys? Saturday’s estate sale was so worth the stop.
Can’t wait to see what I turn up at the next one. 😉
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.
Well Sandy, although I would love to sit around and do that, I do have to stoke with woodstove, put the garden to bed, make soup, and…finish writing a book. But, I do get snagged a lot!
I love your story about the radio show and now I must looks for the Kitchen Klatter Cookbook. I’m not sure if I should say thank you…or not! 😉
I love being part of your family!
K
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!
There was a yellow one at the sale, too. I didn’t buy it, and then I have to confess, that I went back later in the afternoon to buy it. I was saved. It had been purchased just ten minutes before!
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.
Indeed they are!
Love,
Your cookbook soul mate
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!
What a treasure!
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
Diana- Perhaps we need a recipe support group. In the meantime, keep collecting! K
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!
Love your words and passion about one of our favorite pastimes, Tracy!
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 . . .
A perfect night!
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!
Indeed you are lucky! Happy Thanksgiving to you as well, Terri!
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.
Couldn’t agree with you more, Roberta. The vast majority of my home furnishings are second-hand. And, those cookbooks with notations are priceless!
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.
Betty- This is absolutely wonderful! Thank you so much for sharing it. I hope you have a sweet and savory Thanksgiving! xo K
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!
A warehouse FULL of cookbooks? That sounds a little bit like my kind of heaven, Tristin!