1909 The Good Housekeeping Woman's Home Cookbook by Isabel Gordon Curtis

Isabel Gordon Curtis is one of my absolute favorite cookbook authors and this cookbook is an example of why. Her recipes are simple, classic and easy to follow. The history that sorrounds her makes her seem spunky yet classic, I love that. She came to America all the way from Scotland and in her lifetime she had quite a few very popular magazine editing jobs under her belt, Collier's Weekly, the Delineator and Success Magazine being just a few. While getting her start in the highly competitve magazine field she used to say that "No wider experience can be gained than in answering the questions that come from housekeepers to a home magazine. In learning how to solve problems for other people, you absorb a multiplicity of knowledge that cannot be achieved in one home." So combining a special lady like Curtis and a big name like Good Houskeeping, they made cookbook history.
This peticular cookbook was promoted as being the first to come out with the new slender size to help the housewife with it's space saving design, it also has blank sheets for notes on every other page. Good Housekeeping also prided itsef on it's recipes being tested by not only Curtis but company paid testers and it's magazine subscribers as well. It's a great example of one of Good Housekeeping's ideals as a company, to try and make housekeeping more efficient and buisness-like to take some of the stress out of running a house in the early 1900's. A true original and very special antique cookbook to collectors.

1 comment:

Rhandi said...

How fantastic! I must say, I am a big fan of your blog! I could literally read cookbooks all day. Excited to have found you!

Vintage Cookbooks are for everyone who has ever wanted to bake something special and turned to a modern cookbook and realized they never seem to have all the ingredients at the same time, there're for history lovers that want to feel connected to the past in a way that's missing in history books, there're for the people that love that musty old book smell and laugh at kindle's, they're for people that feel like we as a society have gone a little too far, a tad off course with life and want to get back to the simple and the real, and they're for the people that want to pay homage to all the grandma's and great aunts that did it best!

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