How to identify an old cookbook?

[chowmama]

I have some of my paternal grandmother's stuff that I rescued from my parents' basement when I was a teenager. It used to flood, and I was looking for stuff to save before it was damaged. (I also got her costume jewelry, including clip-on earrings, a Bakelite rose pendant and some Nixon campaign jewelry. I wore the pendant for a while. Nixon, not so much.) Nobody else was interested in any of the stuff, and I'm surprised it wasn't already at the dump.

The cover disappeared long before I ever saw it. The page tops just say "Country Cooking', which is less than helpful. It seems to have been paperback to begin with, and the pages are amber-brown and brittle with age. Maybe 6.5" x 4". The recipes seem to be contributed by individual ladies and I tried to identify some of them. Most of them were from Kansas, but some were from other Midwestern states. Unfortunately, most of them identified themselves as 'Mrs. husband's initials and surname'. I did find Mrs. Bessie Anderson Stanley from Lincoln, Kansas, who was apparently a writer and a poet, as well as a cook. She died a year before I was born.

I do love old recipes, the kind where they have a list of ingredients, often without amounts, and the directions 'Mix like biscuit and bake in a hot oven till done'. Anybody want to know how to cook in a haybox? Make homemade yeast? Celery sandwiches?

Anyway, the internet isn't being any help and I don't have a publisher or copyright.

[Mr.Bill]

1. Have you Googled the

names of some of the individual recipes?

[chowmama]

3. Most of the recipe names are too generic

A few are more unique. Iceland Shiver led me nowhere (flavored syrup mixed with shaved ice, an early Snow Cone). Mountain Dew Pudding was apparently once a thing, but I didn't find this particular source. (And it quickly went downhill to the sort of recipes you'd expect. Yuck.) Better Half's Verdict (a pumpkin pie) got me no recipes at all.

I'm not sure how my grandmother came by this book to begin with. She lived in the Twin Cities, MN for her married life; before and afterwards, she taught one-room school in Billings, MT and retired to Minnesota and Wisconsin (alternating, but mostly Wisconsin) to be near her family. A little too far north for this cookbook's community.

[Genki Hikari]

10. You might contact the library in Twin Cities

Someone there may know the provenance of your books.

Another is to check with a rare book dealer working in that area. Some of them have resources that don't make it to the internet.

Good luck!

[Genki Hikari]

11. Oh, and definitely see if any ladies groups

or the like are still around. Many of them maintain archives of their old self-published books.

[MLAA]

2. Reminds me of a church cookbook made up of parishoners'contributions.

[Mr.Bill]

5. I was thinking the same thing.

I used to be a printer and I printed a few of them. It's a common fundraiser in Buddhist Temples.

I still have one I printed for a Temple in the early 80s. It's not all Asian recipes, actually quite a variety.

[Kali]

9. yep or other "Ladies Auxillary" groups

Shriners and other men's orgs have those. In my world, Cowbelles put together cookbooks like that. Farm coop groups - local Womens clubs too.

[Shermann]

4. Where'd the good jewelry float off to?? nt

[chowmama]

7. I believe she was buried with her wedding ring.

Other than that, I don't think she had any good jewelry. If she did, my aunt took it.

[chowmama]

6. How do I add an attachment?

I have a picture.

[hippywife]

8. You have to link to it from another website.

DU doesn't allow direct photo uploads. I use this site to upload them, then copy the direct link it creates to DU:

https://postimages.org/

It sounds like a local church fundraiser cookbook. Some of them include relatives recipes, hence the different cities and states sometimes.

[dem in texas]

12. Measurements and oven temps can date a cookbook

Most home cooking stoves before WWI were wood stoves. Instruction would be slow oven, quick oven, hot oven, not oven temperatures.

Measurements would be a scant goblet, half a tea cup, not 1/2 cup, 1/3 cup etc. Pinch or scant teaspoon , heaping spoon, etc was used. Really old cookbooks did not have baking powder, it was not common until after 1880's. Home made yeast, sourdough, was common in old cookbooks.

I love old recipes too, and the old hand written on a scrap of paper are the best. I used to go to estate sales fairly often and I'd made a bee-line to the kitchen looking for an old cooking stuff and scraps of paper and cards with recipes written on them.

I have some of my grandmother's old cookbooks and she had written comments and changes to the recipes printed in the books.

Community cookbooks were first started after the Civil War by the women in local churches as means of fund raising to help the widows and orphans of the "Great War".

I'm surprised you aren't able to find more about the cookbook. I live in Texas and the the old community cookbooks are fairy easy to find. Some of the really old ones have been reprinted.

[spinbaby]

13. Also ingredients

Ingredients shift over time—either the ingredients themselves change or the description of them. A call for, for instance, Oleo, gives a clue.

I have a small collection of older cookbooks produced by various churches and social organizations. Even with covers, it’s sometimes difficult to pin them down when they’re undated and the social organization in question is defunct.