As living beings, we all have a relationship with food. From birth to death, the biological need to eat is a constant, but how we meet this need varies greatly. As is evidenced in this exhibit selection, recipe books differ in their formality and design. Some authors wrote their recipe books anonymously, while others are known. Nonetheless, they all show ingenuity in meeting our need for nourishment.
Ruth Berolzheimer (Ed.). Victory binding of the American woman’s cook book.
This cookbook, published toward the end of World War II, reflects what an American kitchen looked like during wartime. Economic shifts that took place in this period meant that American homecooks needed to adapt to a changing market and kitchen, and this cookbook shows tutorials on how to grocery shop in addition to recipes.
Nightingale, Florence. Directions for cooking by troops, in camp and hospital.
This tiny little book was reprinted from an original written by pioneering nurse Florence Nightingale, that was first published in 1861. It contains a number of recipes as well as two essays on how to administer food to patients in wartime hospitals. Many of these recipes utilize the same minimal ingredients in different formations in order to make the most of the meager food supply during wartime. It also offers advice on what foods are most helpful to patients during medical treatment.
An excerpt from one of the book’s essays reads:
“Again, if the patient has attained to eating meat, it is supposed that to give him meat is the only thing needful for his recovery; whereas scorbutic sores have been actually known to appear among sick persons living in the midst of plenty in England, which could be traced to no other source than this, vis: that the nurse, depending on meat alone, had allowed the patient to be without vegetables for a considerable time, these latter cooked so badly cooked that he always left them untouched.”
The use of honey in cooking.
From the Special Collections’ Bee collection, this book features recipes that center around honey as an ingredient. Besides recipes, it also includes information on all things relating to honey such as how to store it, how it is made, how to flavor it, and more. Below is an excerpt on why a cook should consider honey for their cooking:
“There are a number of reasons why honey may often be profitably substituted for sugar or cheap molasses in cooking. In the first place, as has already been pointed out, honey is vastly more healthful than sugar, and especially than cheap molasses….”
The melting pot.
This cookbook pulls recipes from regions all over the world, such as Western Europe, Scandinavia, East Asia, and North America. The book also features illustrations representing each region and cuisine.
Kraus, Elizabeth Kruger. Cookbooks and recipes.
This handwritten cookbook is from the manuscripts collection at Special Collections where it makes up part of a small archive of materials. Elizabeth Krueger Kraus was a cook for the Bradley family of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Also included in this archive are a copy of the Settlement cookbook, ca. 1907, with many recipes written in and pasted in; loose printed and holograph recipes; a portrait of Krueger as a young woman; and menus for various occasions at the Bradley house. Accompanying material includes a memoir of Kraus’ cooking by a relative.