Collecting Vintage Cookbooks
My new series, the Vintage Cookbook Mysteries – which launched in June with Bayou Book Thief – is inspired by my own collection of vintage cookbooks. I developed this habit when I stumbled upon a cheery book titled The Ford Treasury of Favorite Recipes from Famous Eating Places in an antiques store. The yellow cover was decorated with artwork that screamed 1950s. That hinted at what lay inside—more wonderful illustrations, along with recipes and descriptions of legendary American eateries. Two dollars later, the book was mine.
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| John Barrymore's Spaghetti Recipe |
What I love about the cookbooks of yore is how they reflect the tenor of their times. One from 1935, the height of the Great Depression, is titled The Budget Cookbook. 1962’s The Working Wives’ (Salaried or Otherwise) Cookbook warily acknowledges women are joining the workforce. I somehow wound up with three copies of Thoughts on Buffets, all purchased at various Friends of the Library sales sponsored by my branch. This tells me buffets were quite popular in 1958 Studio City, California. And I love seeing how culinary tastes change over the decades. 1940s and 1950s cookbooks are a heavy cream lover’s delight. But the editors of the 1968 edition of Cookbook for Two considered two stalks of broccoli wrapped in processed ham and garnished with maraschino cherries the cover money shot.
I’m sure you’re wondering if I ever make the recipes from these cookbooks. The answer is, rarely. But I did want to include them in my series, where my protagonist runs Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbook and Kitchenware Shop, located in a beautiful culinary house museum in New Orleans’ Garden District. For Bayou Book Thief, I chose five from some of my favorite cookbooks, adapting them to current tastes and cooking techniques. The stove in a 1935 cookbook operated differently than the one in my kitchen – which is vintage in and of itself, dating back to early 1980s.
Sharing my ever-growing collection through recipes in my new series is an absolute joy – and one I never saw coming when I picked up that delightful Ford Treasury cookbook at a tiny shop in a tiny town in Connecticut.
A Vintage Cookbook Mystery, Book 1
Twenty-eight-year-old widow Ricki James leaves Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans after her showboating actor husband perishes doing a stupid internet stunt. The Big Easy is where she was born and adopted by the NICU nurse who cared for her after Ricki’s teen mother disappeared from the hospital.
Ricki’s career dream comes true when she joins the quirky staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, the spectacular former Garden District home of late bon vivant Genevieve “Vee” Charbonnet, the city’s legendary restauranteur. Ricki is excited about turning her avocation – collecting vintage cookbooks – into a vocation by launching the museum’s gift shop, Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware. Then she discovers that a trunk of donated vintage cookbooks doesn’t contain books – it holds the body of a cantankerous Bon Vee employee who was fired after being exposed as a book thief.
The skills Ricky has developed ferreting out hidden vintage treasures come in handy for investigations. But both her business and Bon Vee could wind up as deadstock when Ricki’s past as curator of a billionaire’s first edition collection comes back to haunt her.
Will Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware be a success… or a recipe for disaster?
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Thanks so much for hosting me!
ReplyDeleteAlways a pleasure, Ellen. Come back any time.
ReplyDeleteLOL, didn't mean for that to be anonymous!
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