"old cookbooks" news and stories

I'm not gonna lie -- I'm rough on my books. There's a school of thought treating the physical manifestation of the written word as a sacred object, and I fully respect that. However I, for one, shove an old copy of "How to Cook a Wolf" into the bottom of my bag with the notion that at some point it'll sustain me on an overextended subway ride. I read "The Devil in the Kitchen" in the bathtub, A.J. Liebling over a lunchtime reuben, and good gosh a-mighty are my cookbooks covered in schmutz.

But hey, it's thematic goo; "Molto Italiano" is spattered in tomato sauce, "Pie" -- seen above -- is all a-smear in lard, "Charleston Receipts" in Otranto Club Punch and "Staff Meals from Chanterelle" slicked with a fine mist of rendered rind bacon. To my mind, these books are being honored, used, proven. Should these books at some point have a subsequent owner, they'll know what's been tested, made and made again.

Still, am I dishonoring the object or the authors when I'm getting the books all mucky? I posed the question to Matthew Lee (whose book "The Lee Bros. Southern Cooking" I've doused in all manner of pickling brine), and he noted that he and his co-author, his brother Ted have debated pre-mucking-up copies of their book to nix the blank canvas factor. The recipes therein are warm of heart and humble of origin, so it's not out of character, but would, say, a gellan-gumming of Grant Achatz's "Alinea" be a crime against the rather expensive and exceptionally lovely object?

Do you keep your cookbooks in pristine condition, or do you just accept page stains as collateral damage?

Vintage cookbooks are fun, if not downright cool. The better ones are books that you'll want to read again and again, regardless of whether you've tried any of the recipes, while the worst will make you laugh at their illustrations. The best ones will give you lots of good advice, inspiration and recipes that still taste great.

The only problem with vintage cookbooks is that it can be hard to get hold of them. My own collection, which is large, was mostly acquired from my parents and grandparents. The rest are made up of books that I found at various used bookstores when browsing through their offerings. Once in a while, I'll get a specific cookbook in mind, but tracking it down can take time. That's where a store like Old Cookbooks.com can come in. They have a wealth of vintage cookbooks, from personal family collections to "ethnic" foods. In fact, theirs is one of the larger collections that I've seen. The price of the books varies by rarity and age (my 1943 Joy of Cooking is listed at $36.50), but it's still a great resource if you're looking to find a few of these older cookbooks easily.

Interestingly, Epicurious also offers a vintage book search. You can e-mail a description of the book you're looking for, and their contact will get back to you with a title, author and date of a book, as well as a price, if they have it on hand. It's a great way to look-up that book your mom always had sitting on the counter if you never knew what it was called!

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