Get old cookbooks ... often at great price.

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JoMama

Senior Cook
Joined
Feb 2, 2009
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122
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada
As our children have grown, I've either given them some cookbooks from our family's collection ... or somehow my cookbooks have sprouted legs and walked off (unlikely scenerio). So ... this past year I discovered many of my old beloved cookbooks could be found on amazon.com for very little cost ... plus the $2.99 or $3.99 shipping. I've even found some from as far back as 1982!

Of note ... I've found the shipping on eBay to be rather more expensive than Amazon.

Anyone else tracking down old cookbooks?
 
Oh, I have a few, about 1000 at last count.
Oldest one was printed in 1894.
It's kind of a mental disease, I think. :LOL:


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And a few more:

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There's actually two more bookcases that are half the size of the white one.
 
I thought I was overloaded with cookbooks!

Do you think you have enough now?
 
Wow Scotch, my palms got all itchy just looking at all of those lovely books - and I thought 250 was too many!

Another great place to pick up cookbooks are yard sales and the Goodwill - yeah, I am that cheap.
 
Scotch ... WOW! You are inspiring. What an incredible collection!!! How do you categorize them? When did you begin to collect cookbooks? Which one is your favorite? (If it is possible to have only one favorite.)

My oldest cookbook was my aunt's ... The American Family Cookbook (1952) ... made of ol' manilla paper ... I rarely open it anymore ... very fragile.

I also like 'reproduction' cookbooks ... for example (and I've already mentioned this in one of my other posts): City Tavern Cookbook - 200 Years of Classic Recipes from America's First Gourmet Restaurant, by Walter Staib I find old recipes both fun & charming. As I have learned ... folks certainly used a lot less sugar 150 years ago!

My most 'odd' find (only because Hubby wants to take up hunting because wild game is getting a little pricey at Village Meat Market) has been Ted & Sheman Nugent's Kill It & Grill It - A Guide to Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish. Ted Nugent ... as in the ol' rock star from the 60s/70s. Hey, I don't make this stuff up ... LOL!

Again ... what a collection!
 
Do you think you have enough now?
No, but I don't have room for many more. Actually, haven't bought many in the last year -- the illness kind of comes and goes, as it does with most collections.

How do you categorize them?
Not as well as I should. The hardbacks are mostly on the big bookshelf, and the soft backs, pamphlets, and ring binders are on the white shelves. The hardbacks are sort of grouped by type -- all the Italian together, all the French, all the Chinese, all the pressure cooker, BBQ, etc. Some are by author -- note all the Joy of Cooking volumes, starting with a 1st Printing of the 1936 Edition (the yellow one). Collections, such as all the Southern Living books or Farm Journal or Williams-Sonoma books are together. Finding a specific recipe can be torture!

When did you begin to collect cookbooks?
We had a few after we got married in 1968. My mother died in 1970 and we grabbed all of her cookbooks, including her 3"X5" file and her handwritten notebooks, before my sisters got there (they weren't interested, anyway -- one is sort of nuts and the other is a PhD in Astrophysics). After that we just bought one now and then, but in recent years it sort of went crazy. I blame eBay.

Which one is your favorite?
Many favorites! From a collector's viewpoint, my favorite is the near-mint copy of the 1894 1st Edition of The Epicurean (middle section of the big bookcase, bottom shelf, far right). It's very rare, and generally considered to be one of the most important American cookbooks ever published. My 1936 Joy is also a gem. When it comes to favorites for cooking, it's harder to say. I tend more to liking authors -- Julia Child, James Beard, Marcella Hazan, Madhur Jaffrey, Lorna Sass, and others -- and some of the collections. Too many good ones to single out.

My oldest cookbook was my aunt's ... The American Family Cookbook (1952) ... made of ol' manilla paper ... I rarely open it anymore ... very fragile.
Not sure if I have that one (I looked but I'll have to ask my wife). I do have others by Lily Wallace, including a fairly rare copy of The Woman's World Cookbook.

I also like 'reproduction' cookbooks ... for example (and I've already mentioned this in one of my other posts): City Tavern Cookbook - 200 Years of Classic Recipes from America's First Gourmet Restaurant, by Walter Staib I find old recipes both fun & charming. As I have learned ... folks certainly used a lot less sugar 150 years ago!
The oldies are great to look through, and I often enjoy making the old recipes.

My most 'odd' find (only because Hubby wants to take up hunting because wild game is getting a little pricey at Village Meat Market) has been Ted & Sheman Nugent's Kill It & Grill It - A Guide to Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish. Ted Nugent ... as in the ol' rock star from the 60s/70s. Hey, I don't make this stuff up ... LOL!
I have a couple of copies of The Gun Club Cook Book your husband might enjoy. I think my strangest, however, is a 1946 volume called One-Arm Cookery, which instructs you to have a beer in one hand and an ashtray by the stove while you're cooking!

Again ... what a collection!
Thanks. It's a lot of fun, and like most collectors, I enjoy sharING my collection with others who are interested in the subject, or who at least pretend to be. :chef:
 
BTW, this is one of my favorite places to find old cookbooks.

Janet Jarvits, Bookseller

It's in Pasadena, an entire store filled to the rafters with old cookbooks, including many rare and collectible volumes. And Janet is a neat lady, fun to talk to, and very knowledgeable about the subject.
 
Yes it's a great collection, but my brother says a cookbook collection isn't complete without "The White Trash Cookbook". He's been looking for years and I can't wait for him to find it, I'm so tired of the "I had it in my hands" story.
 
Yes it's a great collection, but my brother says a cookbook collection isn't complete without "The White Trash Cookbook". He's been looking for years and I can't wait for him to find it, I'm so tired of the "I had it in my hands" story.

I have that one! I didn't know anyone else ever heard of it. (It's REALLY bad,though);)
 
Yes it's a great collection, but my brother says a cookbook collection isn't complete without "The White Trash Cookbook". He's been looking for years and I can't wait for him to find it, I'm so tired of the "I had it in my hands" story.
If you mean the book I think you mean, it's not hard to find: CLICKY

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BTW, there's a second volume, White Trash Cooking II: CLICKY
 
I haven't been here in a while I like the tomatoes by each forum.

I am so glad to see someone else likes old cookbooks. I have very few compared to you guys, but I love love me some vintage cookbooks.
 
I used to spend a lot of time in the used book stores in the cookbook section. I would come home with all kinds of great finds. My favorite was an old French cookbook that I still love and use to this day.

I also really like the Junior League and Church compilation cookbooks. The way I figure it, junior leaguers and church members won't put in a recipe unless they know it's a tried-and-true keeper that's worth sharing.
 
I also really like the Junior League and Church compilation cookbooks. The way I figure it, junior leaguers and church members won't put in a recipe unless they know it's a tried-and-true keeper that's worth sharing.
GREAT cookbooks! And if you don't have time to find the books compiled by individual chapters of the League, look for the hardbound versions. I have the Southern Union League Cookbook, The Eastern Junior League Cookbook, and the Western Junior League Cookbook. Use them fairly often, recommend all three.
 
Wow Scotch, my palms got all itchy just looking at all of those lovely books - and I thought 250 was too many!

Another great place to pick up cookbooks are yard sales and the Goodwill - yeah, I am that cheap.
You're not cheap, just being thrifty. ;) Flea markets may have some too.
 
"Books? Books? I don't got to show you no stinkin' books" (Play on words from "Treasure of the Sierra Madres" movie). I had a lot of cookbooks. Other than a very few, I sold, gave, donated almost all of them. Hey, with Google, Allrecipies and Discuss Cooking, who needs books? When we retired, we had to downsize, so now we just have our wonderful laptops! Happy recipe research on the Internet!
 
You're not cheap, just being thrifty. ;) Flea markets may have some too.
Not only that, but the real treasures for collectors aren't the tons of new cookbooks now in bookstores but the oldies found in thrift shops, at used book sales, on EBay, etc. Most of the books in photos of my bookshelf are more than 20 years old, averaging probably 30 or 40 years old (pure guess), some well over 100.

I love the books from the 20s through the 60s; after that, things went downhill for awhile, IMHO, as convenience began to outstrip taste and nutrition. OTOH, there weren't as many foreign and ethnic cookbooks back then, which seemed to have surged in the 80s and beyond as more people became interested in cooking and dining.
 
"Books? Books? I don't got to show you no stinkin' books" (Play on words from "Treasure of the Sierra Madres" movie). I had a lot of cookbooks. Other than a very few, I sold, gave, donated almost all of them. Hey, with Google, Allrecipies and Discuss Cooking, who needs books? When we retired, we had to downsize, so now we just have our wonderful laptops! Happy recipe research on the Internet!

Ah, yes, but cookbooks are more than just a compilation of recipes. In fact, I don't do the cooking in my family, but I can curl up with a cookbook and enjoy it almost as much as reading fiction.
 
Ah, yes, but cookbooks are more than just a compilation of recipes. In fact, I don't do the cooking in my family, but I can curl up with a cookbook and enjoy it almost as much as reading fiction.
Cooking for me is a passion. :chef: Reading fiction is an escape. :)
 

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