My Love Of Vintage Cookbooks

 

I am very fortunate to have a small collection of vintage cookbooks that belonged to my grandmother, her mother and my mother's mother as well as her grandmother.  Unfortunately it was due to their passing that I inherited these treasures, however I am so happy that I do have them.  I have always loved old cookbooks and I have great memories of sitting in their kitchens pouring through their lovely collections of cookbooks, reading the recipes, copying some of them down onto recipe cards and making them once I had returned home.  Sometimes they had written down recipes on scraps of paper and tucked them inside along with recipes they had clipped out of newspapers and magazines.  It was a true treasure trove and still is.

 

I love the lists of menus in these old cookbooks

This old 1927 Butterick cookbook belonging to my great grandmother has seen a lot of action

My favorite thing to do at thrift stores and antique shops is to seek out the cookbook sections and I've often come home with vintage Better Homes & Gardens as well as old Betty Crocker cookbooks.  I've resold a lot of them over the years too and I've kept some.  I love the simplicity of the recipes and the ingredients they used.  I also love the menu plans, the tips and tricks sections, the recommendations for health and nutrition, and the shopping and economics of good homemaking.

 

The All About Home Baking 1933 cookbook was falling apart

None of the original pages are bound anymore

I carefully photocopied all of the pages and remade it into this binder
complete with sheet protectors so I can use it often and I do!

My great grandmother's Butterick cookbook is dated 1927 making my grandmother four years old at the time.  It is loaded with housekeeping, health and economy tips, lists of suggestions for soup ideas and sandwich fillings.  I just love it.  Another one of my cookbooks is from 1934 and it is amazing with all of the beautiful photos and menu suggestions.  It also houses my grandmother's go-to fruitcake recipe that she always used.  I plan to use these cookbooks more often in the coming year, I may even make her fruitcake over Thanksgiving weekend like she and I always did.  You just never know!

 

Quite easily this one has become my favorite go-to cookbook for baking

Circa 1967 - Giveaway!! 😊

And, if you made it to the end of this post then good for you!  I'm going to give away one of my Better Homes & Gardens vintage cookbooks.  I may even give away two!  If you are interested in this giveaway and you live in the United States all you need to do is leave me a nice comment.  Pretty easy, huh?  Then next week I will select the winner and post the name or names.  After the holidays I will mail out the cookbook.  You can call me a wimp if you want to, but I don't want to go to the post office between now and New Years.