First off, about me-
Hi, I'm your friendly local druid who's favorite animal is the ocelot.
You can call me Nathan.
I use he/him/his pronouns, and am a 31 year old autistic, disabled, Irish-American transgender man.
I have scoliosis, and my spine is just about as straight as I am, which is not at all.
Yes, I know that's a LOT of descriptors, but I feel it necessary to be up front about who I am.
About the blog-
This blog is my personal effort to archive vintage and out of print cookbooks, with as much as an emphasis on community cookbooks as humanly possible.
They will have as much commentary as necessary to keep me within fair use guidelines and out of issues with companies that own the brands some of these cookbooks are owned by.
This blog is for educational use and archival, and is not going to have ANY monetization.
If I happen to get multiple different printings of the same cookbook (say the... Good Housekeeping Cook Book) I will do my UTMOST to show the differences between recipes from those separate printings.
I will attempt, as much as I am physically able, to make individual recipes easy to find, separated by type as much as possible, though I have little confidence in my personal ability to make a blogger site have full website functionality without assistance.
About the Cookbooks-
My current oldest cookbook is from 1912, and I have a great many from the 1940s through the 1980s. These books are amazing insights into the way the food industry has evolved over time. Many of the cookbooks I have are one of four types:
Community/Charity Cookbooks-
These are small productions made by community groups, hobby/work associations, and/or Charities, usually with small print runs and are either spiral, comb, or ring bound. Many of these were sold for fundraising purposes and had recipes submitted by members.
Corporate/Magazine Cookbooks-
These are big productions, usually with names like Betty Crocker, Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, and "Women's Day". These were recipes designed by professional test kitchens, usually involving product sponsorship, or in some cases, like Betty Crocker, were produced by a food company. Betty Crocker, for example, is owned by General Mills, and often strictly advises the use of General Mills owned and produced products in the recipes.
Educational Cookbooks/ Culinary School Text Books-
These are cookbooks aimed at the students of culinary schools. Most have a more encyclopedic format, with a large emphasis on techniques, and recipes as tools for teaching techniques.
Themed/ Single Subject Cookbooks-
This sometimes has overlap with corporate cookbooks. These are cookbooks designed around individual subjects, things like a cookbook JUST on cookies, or bread, etc. They are often very narrow in scope, and quite small in page count.
A General Content Warning-
Sometimes older cookbooks use insensitive and bigoted language. If a cookbook does, it will be noted, and commented on. I do NOT endorse the use of bigoted language, and when I note a cookbook uses an outdated and hateful term, it is as a warning for someone who might go looking for a copy of that cookbook, because I, personally, do not want someone to be surprised by a cookbook from the 1940s using language that is hateful, harmful, or upsetting in nature.
Sometimes older cookbooks also have recipes that use ingredients that are now illegal or otherwise unable to be sourced (or inadvisable to source)- for example, one of the cookbooks in my collection, from 1912, has several recipes using currently endangered animals, including green sea turtles and terrapins. Those recipes will be archived for historical reasons, but I HIGHLY discourage anyone from trying to make those dishes.
How I source Cookbooks-
I normally source cookbooks via thrift stores, used bookshops, garage sales, and estate sales. If a cookbook is in rough condition, I try to transcribe as much as possible in an effort to reduce any use-based damage done to it in the future. I typically make index cards using a manual typewriter of recipes I, personally, think I will use most often, and the rest is transcribed onto my computer, and hopefully, put into this blog, with commentary.
If you have questions, please do not hesitate to ask them!
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