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Books, Cookbooks, Culinary History, Food, Home Cooking, Reading, Recipe Collections, Recipe Reading
I am fascinated by the stories cookbooks tell and the lives they let us enter. Recipe reading has long been an important method of social cartography, telling us not only about the ingredients, cooking methods and dishes favoured in particular times and places, but also about the lives of others near and far.
Women’s lives are especially prominent between the lines. Cookbooks were a means through which women’s voices were heard and their knowledge and creativity documented. Often this took shape in the form of cook’s notes scrawled in the margins and shared with friends. Without handwritten recipes and personal annotations cookbooks would likely be far less revealing – and intriguing!
While I love finding old books that contain notes and inscriptions, and pour over scholarly work documenting the social and material history of recipes, I rarely write in my own cookbooks. I began to reflect on this when I came across a post devoted to writing in cookbooks on one of my must read daily food sites. I do keep a recipe journal with recipes shared by friends and family, or adapted from books and blogs, but I rarely make annotations on the pages of my cookbooks despite the fact that I use some of them frequently. Am I denying others a peek into my life by failing to personalize my cookbooks with additional information? Perhaps I should get scribbling …
Read the post here and check out The New York Times article that inspired it. For more notes and recipes found in old books visit Handwritten Recipes.
Do you write in your cookbooks or do you prefer to document your notes and substitutions elsewhere?
Related posts: The unknown reader as writer Cookbook confidential Researching reading & eating
Not only do I collect cookbooks, I write in every one! lol I write what I changed, who liked it and who didn’t, the occasion for the meal and pretty much any little thing. I started doing this when I inherited my grandmothers cookbooks and I came across some handwritten notes and handwritten recipes from her… it made me cry! Anyway, I think it’s just a little bit of history:-) Good post!
I love the idea of writing the occasion for a meal or dish in cookbooks! What a lovely way to remember special milestones and the routines that mark our daily lives. Fabulous that you have your grandmother’s cookbooks! I don’t have any old family cookbooks but I do have my grandmother’s china. Thanks for visiting.
I have my Grandma’s China too! lol And was blessed to have her old pots and pans and china cabinet. The cookbooks are probably the most special. I remember her to be such a fantastic cook but the strange thing is that every time I attempt to use one of her old 1930′s or ’40′s books, they really don’t turn out the way I remember them tasting. My mom says that it’s because back then, ingredients were different and techniques were different. Some ingredients, I can’t find anywhere either. lol Who Knew?
Anyway, thanks for being so nice and letting me “jack” your blog for a trip down memory lane! lol Cool blog, btw… Have a wonderful day!
What an interesting history you’ve identified. I love coming across unexpected scribbling in cookbooks, almost as though the energy of the cook is imbued on the pages. I made notes in some of my earlier cookbooks, at a time when I was learning to cook (the original Moosewood, for example). I would indicate substitutions or embellishments or the fact that a recipe was a favourite. But I’ve noticed that I no longer do so. Many of my older cookbooks were text heavy, and so I didn’t feel as though I was “besmirching” them with scribbles. At some point, as cookbooks became more photo laden and the layout a work of art, I no longer felt I wanted to write in mine.
Great point about the changing design of cookbooks! So important to account for how the design of everyday objects and the meaning that holds (or changes) for us influences how we make use of them. I don’t confine my cookbook collection only to the kitchen, but instead enjoy seeing them on my coffee table and other places around my home.
I have my own note and not writing on the cook book unless the ingredient amount is wrong.
I sometimes use a post-it note or slide an index card with my personal notes and substitutions into my cookbooks, but also refrain from writing on the book itself. When I get a new cookbook or spend time revisiting an old favourite, I like to use an index card to list the recipes I am most interested in making. That way I don’t need to page through the whole book each time I want to try a new dish. Thanks for visiting!
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