In days of yore
My ex-husband is to blame. However, he disagrees with me on this. He blames my mother’s family, especially her great-aunt. When my ex and I would take a vacation, he always wanted to stop in used book stores and antique shops— he is an avid reader and collects Detroit Publishing post cards. I need something to occupy myself. As I love to cook, I went straight for the cookbooks. This began my collection of antique and vintage cook books and recipe pamphlets. In the first half of the last century food product and kitchen appliance companies printed their own to show consumers how to use their product or appliance through cooking. If this origin story ended here, then it would most definitely be my ex’s fault.
The story has a side bar. In St. Louis at the turn of the last Century was the Settlement House. This organization taught immigrant women how to cook American food and be a good American housewife. The wrench is this was that the women mostly Eastern European and German wanted to learn how to make their traditional recipes using American ingredients. The teachers, local women, decided to take all the recipes, American, German and Eastern European, and compile them into a cookbook, The Settlement Cookbook. The first printing was in 1903. The Compiler was Mrs. Simon Kander. In my family she is affectionately known as Aunt Lizzie as she was my mother’s great aunt. A first edition is the holy grail in the world of collecting cookbooks. I have a reprint. I own editions from the 1930s to the most recent one, 1995. And this is where my mother’s family is to blame.
Some have lost their spines and one is covered in wax paper to protect it.
I don’t buy every cookbook or recipe or pamphlet I see. I look at four things:
The subject (baking, french cooking, food for kids, etc.)
The publishing date
Condition
Price
The last two are things to be considered when buying an antique. I learned this when I worked for a mall auction company in NYC in my late 20s. Add to these, two questions:
Does it fit in my collection?
If yes, will it add to my collection in a meaningful way?
Also, I have a collection of colored glass vases with clear bottoms. At this point, I have enough standard shapes that if it isn’t an odd shape, fluted, etched, etc., I am not buying it. So now all the vases I purchase are a meaningful addition and cause my daughter to roll her eyes.