1940
-The cookbooks of the 40's are great! There’re great dinner party and hostessing ones at about this time. If you can find some of the WW2 related ones they're super facinating to read. Subjects like how to bake with limited eggs and milk, what types of cuts of meat to pick to make you budget stretch and of course, victory garden cookbooks and home canning guides. The rationing chapters that are usually added to the bigger name cookbooks can sneak through a dealers eyesight and can be picked up for a steal if you know what your looking for. Usually very patriotic in illustrations and general theme. They're also valuable because of cross-collectibles meaning more than just cookbook collectors would want them. Company advertising booklets started to aim their efforts at homemakers and housewives at about this time due to leftover processed food products from the war. Their pitch? Let us make your life easier so you can enjoy the funner asspects of life like having dinner parties and bridge luncheons that lo and behold also
had to include their products naturally, of course.
1930
- The cookbooks of the 30’s are gems for the obvious reasons. These women had to do it all, maintaining life as normally as possible, but with the drastic decrease to incomes that literally happened overnight due to the Great Depression. Another reason that these cooksbooks are a rare treat is due to the fact that there weren't alot of companies and publishing houses printing any new books for obvious reasons. The cookbooks that were published are usually budget-minded and very practical. Money saving tips and st
retching your dollar themes are common.
This is where the glamorous and excessive recipes of the roaring 20's came to dead stop and the start of practical and miserly recipes of the 1930s started. Hostessing large, grand parties stopped. There was still entertaining but in more of a small and intimate setting with close friends, think bridge clubs and church luncheons These are where some amazing stories and recipes can be found. Makes you humble and grateful!
Part 1
People collect vintage cookbooks for so many different reasons, it would impossible to name them all here. Speaking for myself, they're a great peek into the personal side of history. We were all taught the names of the famous generals, kings and dates of all of the important wars and events, generally speaking, things the majority of us have nothing in common with. Nothing to makes us feel connected to the past. But what about the other 95% of the days and people that weren't important or dramatic enough to make it
into the history books? People like myself? I feel that cookbooks are a great way to expierience that personal connection with people that have been through the same things. What to make for dinner? On a budget? How to keep a nice home and manage your family? All have been done before and written endlessly about. A great thing about older cookbooks compared to current is that it's delicious real food made with things you already have in your pantry. Simple, great tasting food, no exotic spices here You know the recipes I'm talking about, the ones you realize you have to run to the store for half way through completing. There're
no egos getting in the way of the food either like some of the celebrity chefs of today. They're also a great investment. Financially and personally. Not to mention, let's say you never plan on selling it or try ing to make a profit from them, cookbooks usually saves you way more than what you paid for it in the tips alone and what a great family keepsake to one day hand down!
The very first White House Cook Book was published in 1887 by a lady named Fanny lemia Gillette. She had been compiling what would becoe one of the most important cookbooks to date for almost 40 years. Inside are recipes for cosmestics to cleaners, how-to's on hospitality to child rearing. Everything the lady of the house from the vistorian era ought to know. It's great tips on almost every topic made this cookbook a favorite for brides-to-be. Besides having some engravings of a few of the first ladies it lacks any of the facts about the White House itself.
Later editions featured Hugo Ziemann, the White House Steward as a co-author who included facts and illustrations of the famous house. Most of the editions include a picture the current first lady at the time of printing was, on the front piece of the book. They have amazing illustrations showing the interior of the white house that included presidential table settings and all of the classic famous prseidential rooms.
The very early editions are incredibly hard to find largely due to printing on poor quality paper, making the pages brittle and succeptable to damage. So quality and condition play a VERY big part in the value of this antique cookbook.
A great keepsake and rare collectible from any publication date makes this a true american treasure!
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!
