Victorian cookbooks

According to a recent article in various magazines and websites, vintage cookbooks are still a sought after collectible. High-end restaurants and bed and breakfast establishments are searching through cookbooks from yesteryear to find new and unusual recipes to add to their menus. You may want to try some new, old recipes yourself!

Vintage cookbooks are like history books in a way. The kinds of recipes and styles of cooking in their pages tell a lot of what was going on in that particular era. Earlier cookbooks used items such as lard in their recipes. My husband recently wanted to make an old cornbread recipe and couldn’t find lard anywhere. WWII era recipes often reflect the rationing of sugar and other ingredients. You can usually tell the era of the cookbook by the clothing style worn by the cooks in pictures or the types of recipes therein. In the 1960s, some cookbooks actually had a recipe for marijuana brownies in them! I’m sure in Colorado you can find all kinds of marijuana cookbooks now.

Some people like to collect cookbooks from a certain time period or by subject. Cookbooks that are dedicated to cookies, holiday recipes or even the Roaring 20s are popular with collectors. The top two collectible cookbooks are Joy of Cooking and Betty Crocker’s picture cookbooks. I still have my Betty Crocker cookbook that was a wedding gift from 1983. The marriage didn’t survive but the cookbook did! Many companies such as Pillsbury, Jell-O, Frigidaire and other now defunct companies produced their own recipe booklets that were given away as premiums or with new appliances.

To me, cookbooks can tell the story of your own life. I have a church cookbook made by the ladies of a church I attended when we were stationed in Florida. It contains recipes from those great dinners on the grounds. When I make those old recipes, I can remember the faces of those certain ladies who have long passed on. We have cookbooks from schools the kids attended when they were little that the teachers made, and when we cook, I remember my children eating those favorite dishes and hopefully they will make those dishes for their children now that they are grown. Recipes from grandparents and relatives long since passed remind us of their love.

One of the popular old southern cookbooks was from a homemaker named Mrs. Dull. I hope her recipes were exciting! Perry native Mildred Warren’s cookbook from the 1960s is highly sought after locally and don’t forget new cookbooks that I am sure will be collectible one day from Mr. James Farmer. Another famous cookbook is one called the White House Cookbook from the late 1800s and early 1900s that can bring hundreds of dollars at auction.

When collecting cookbooks, condition is of the utmost importance, as with all antiques. This can sometimes be hard because good cookbooks often had gravy stains or dogeared pages. To me, this just adds character to cherished recipes. You can find all kinds of cookbooks at antique shops, thrift stores and flea markets. The highest price paid at auction was for American Cookery by Amelia Simmons from 1796 that fetched $10,000 at auction. Happy collecting!

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