Vintage Cookbooks
I love vintage cookbooks! I especially enjoy old advertising cookbooks. If you’ve never taken the time to look at a few, then you really should. Most definitely accurately reflect the times in which they were published. They are really very interesting and can help us to understand the underlying social and cultural values of the times.
Cooking in Heels
Some of them are actually pretty humorous. For example, one that I recently looked at referred to a particular cake recipe as being, “perfect for your next bridge party.” Well… I don’t know about you, but I haven’t ever attended a bridge party, and I’m not even completely certain what it even entails. If you pay close attention you will notice that the cooks are nearly always women, and that they are oftentimes cooking in dresses and heels. Honestly, who does that? Also, if men are cooking it is usually only outdoors on the “manly” grill.
Another cookbook from the 1930’s includes a page of “helpful hints” for ways to help your husband to relax after a long day at work. One suggestion is to, “take his shoes, prop his feet up, and bring him the newspaper and a cold beverage.” Call me a feminist if you’d like, but I am fairly certain that with the lack of modern conveniences at that time, the poor wife had probably been working every bit as hard as he had. Plus, she apparently was doing all of that housework in a dress and heels! :-)Hopefully you get the idea.
Cookbooks for Sale!
These cookbooks afford us glimpses into American society and family life and to me are endlessly fascinating. When we lost our mother, we became the very proud owners of literally hundreds of old vintage cookbooks. We have sold many of them, but we have many more available now and in the future in our Etsy shop.
This post was originally published on our Two Ladybugs Vintage website.
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