Part Four Cookery Heritage Being Lost

Recipes written on all sorts of paper.

PART FOUR

SO MUCH COOKERY HERITAGE TOSSED IN THE REFUSE BIN DISCARDED BECAUSE OF DISINTEREST

     Suzanne and I are sure of one thing when it comes to collecting old cookbooks and their resident handwritten recipes that were most often folded up, and stuffed inside these same well used and well travelled texts passed down through the generations. The fact is clear to us, that it is infinitely better today, as far as the hunt and gather of these old texts, than when started our collection back in the early 1980's. Although it's not a scientific survey, as such, it does seem to confirm that old passed-down cookbooks are not nearly as important to maintain in the modern era kitchens. They have been replaced by art, interesting decorator pieces, and the most up to date cookbooks, that look better for presentation, than the value of advice offered within. It seems that modern home chefs of this new century, would rather have updated texts lining their kitchen shelf, if they decide to cook in the first place. I suppose for entertaining, having an old beat-up family cookbook doesn't look cool, although, in our opinion, these books are always mainstays of good taste no matter how badly their cover stock is damaged and stained, and whether or not the spine is still connected securely to the rest of the text.
     Although Suzanne and I could buy five to ten full boxes of cookbooks at estate sale auctions, back in the early to late 1980's, it was rare to find them in used book shops and almost impossible to locate at flea markets and yards sales where today, you can find lots of variety. It's kind of sad to folks like us, because these kitchen relics, like the family Bible, should remain with family as far along the line as it goes. Of course in this regard we are hopeless romantics and victims of nostalgia, but we seek no cure for this pleasant affliction. I would say that, today, our opportunities to acquire old and collectable cookbooks and all that go with them in the way of handwritten recipes, is four to five times greater than it was when we began. It's good in a way but not so good in another. We acquire the best of the best, being cookbooks with a proven track-record of loyalty amongst generations of home cooks, and those other community cookbooks contributed-to by friends and neighbors in church congregations, service clubs, fundraising associations, and hamlet, village and town publications with all the names of those who have offered recipes. We always have buyers for these small format, simply produced cookbooks, often with spiral or staple bindings.
     We very much appreciate when those who have inherited these wonderful relics of cookery heritage offer them for sale, either to us, or at venues where we can make purchases. I just hate the thought of so much history being dumped at landfill sites, or destroyed for general lack of interest. There are many folks on this continent that want these old and often rare cookbooks for their exceptional content; and many because they are books their grandmothers and mothers owned, and used every week in their family homes. Baby Boomers are amongst our best customers and for good reason. They are amongst the last loyalists to old cookbooks, with exception of collectors and those suffering the same affliction, of being a slave to the emotions of nostalgia.
     In my years associated with old books, as a buyer and seller, I have picked up some repair skills to at the very least secure covers back onto texts, as companion to all other conservation efforts to free them of the contaminates garnered over a long shelf life. Suzanne and I have saved many books that seemed destined to the garbage bin, or recycling depot. It pleases us to bits to be able to save these beat-up old cookbooks, thought best ground back to pulp, or returned to the earth from which they once grew in forest stands. What we conserve, at the same time, are some recipes that are not common today, but are of interest to home cooks and chefs, looking for some history with their culinary creations. A unique old cookbook, in terms of content, has to be in very, very bad shape for us to cast it into the bin. Even then, we probably have yanked out pages without mold, and saved them in plastic sheets for future reference.
     We also have in our collection, many cookbooks and handwritten recipes with provenance; meaning that we recognized the owner, and how we came to acquire the item(s). We have had collections donated to us, not to sell, but to use as reference for our customers and a host of home cooks and chefs. We will make sure those using the resource are told of its particular chronicle of ownership because this does matter; if not to them, to us as the stewards of the collection. And we are often asked for specific recipes from a time period, and we can go back to the mid-1800's Victorian period, with some ease, at this point. Although we want to be able to go back much further with both cookbooks and handwritten material of period home cooks. It does exist, and we want to own it, or at least as much of it as we can afford. It can get pretty pricey chasing down the oldest cookbooks and related ephemera. All you have to do is check titles through online rare book sites and even on ebay auction listing, to find out just how valuable they can get with the growing pressure of collectors like us trying to buy up the gems. Some of the rarest books from earlier centuries can easily hit the multi-thousand dollar level. We have to sit on the sidelines for these auctions unfortunately.
     We want to remind the readers of this series, to keep us in mind, should inherited cookbook collections, in your possession, become a burden on your kitchen or library shelves. While only a small portion of these old and out of print cookbooks are of significant value, there is a growing value due to an increasing market interest. Here are some of the most coveted of the general cookbooks we need regularly for our large client list; just in case you have some and wish to part with them. Here are a few of our most requested cookbooks according to our collection archivist, Suzanne: "A Guide To Good Cooking with Five Roses Flour," "Purity Cook Book," "Blue Ribbon Cook Book," "Ogilive's Book for a Cook," and as mentioned previously, Community Church Group Cookbooks. Locally representative community cookbooks from Muskoka hamlets, villages and towns are most desirable, and we always like to keep a good stock of these on hand, as they are highly sought after, especially by family members of those who, many years ago, contributed recipes. If you have cookbooks you don't need any longer, especially the ones listed above, please text us and we'll get right back to you.
     While there are collector colleagues who can't figure out what we find so appealing about old cookbooks and handwritten recipes, there are many millions of folks around the globe who are smitten with the whole package of culinary heritage. It starts with a love for kitchen craft, and the belief that this room is the most magical in the household, and often turns into a culinary relationship that carries on through a lifetime. It happened this way in our own family, and although my mother wasn't a highly proficient cook, we still treated our tiny apartment kitchen as if it was a shrine of sorts. It's where we had our holiday meals, and seeing as we were only a family of three, we made our kitchen a place of great, however humble celebration. It was as if we had a dozen Curries in that room, and as Charles Dickens penned the words of his clerk, coming in late after Christmas, "I am behind my time. I was making rather merry," yesterday. So were we and on a pretty tight budget. But good food is good food afterall, and we ate well in those days when by economy, we were amongst the poorest of the apartment block, yet the least concerned about what that meant in earnest. My parents seemed to make the kitchen a restorative room in a neat but sparsely furnished apartment, and there was a strange alchemy I never understood, how they could make so much food each week on so few dollars left after rent and utilities were paid. They had both lived through the Great Depression, my father's home being amongst the poorest of the Irish in Toronto's Cabbagetown neighborhood, and my mother Merle, being the daughter of Blanche and Stanley Jackson; Blanche being an outstanding home cook, even according to the hobos she fed at the back door, and Stan being a contractor who had a hard time getting customers to pay, even a church congregation, for the building he had constructed in those terrible years of economic calamity. Food seemed to sooth the savage beast within.
     Please join Suzanne and I again tomorrow, for another post on this facebook page, about the good fun and rewards of collecting vintage cookbooks and handwritten recipes.