Food and cooking are human universals -- we are what we eat and how we cook it. Cookbooks, then, are more than just how-to books; they can be guidebooks and storybooks, helping us understand other cultures and times.
The digitized historical cookbooks in this collection date from the 1700s to the 1900s. Mostly American and British, they contain not only recipes, but also elegant engravings of table settings and cooking paraphernalia, home remedies and cure-all tonics, instructions on managing servants, and more. In short, these gastronomical treasures reveal much about the societies and economic times that created them.
May browsing these shopping lists, menus, recipes, and culinary practices from long ago bring you an enjoyable taste of the past.
Sarah Gordon, Associate Professor of French,
Utah State University; Author of Culinary
Comedy in Medieval Literature.
The original print volumes reside in the
Merrill-Cazier Library’s Special Collections
and Archives at Utah State University.
Image used with permission from Eras of Elegance (http://www.erasofelegance.com)