A-Bombs In the Kitchen (Emeril Says, "Bam!")

by Stephen J. Gertz

"I am become Death, the destroyer of appetites" 

(J. Robert Oppenheimer, Krishna in the Kitchen, p. 48).

Wondering what to serve for that special dinner with family and friends? Bored by Martha Stewart? Rachel Ray outré? Jacque Pépin and Julia Child too mild? Don't want to nuke in the microwave but want to dazzle with a meal that's the bomb?

Look no further than How To Make An Atomic Bomb in Your Own Kitchen, 1951's salute to nuclear physics, the Cold War, and Betty Crocker.

"Written in an interesting, lucid style, this is an essential book for the millions who want to know the basics of atomics."

It's an introduction to molecular gastronomy and culinary physics writ large and long before Ferran Adrià began serving foamed neutrinos at El Bulli or Nathan Myhrvold began publishing Modernist Cuisine.

Everything you need to know about building a nuclear bomb in the privacy of the pantry is here. All that's lacking are centrifuges, so tough to find on the open market without clearance from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or a clandestine connection in North Korea.

Here's an apocryphal recipe, contributed by an anonymous insider at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Fission Fish ala Fermi:

Holy mackerel
Sprig of rosemary
Soupçon of enriched uranium
Dash of plutonium
Split pea atoms 
Cloud of mushrooms
Salt to taste

Wearing lead apron and density 4.2 goggles, add ingredients to well-oiled saucepan. Heat to 1,000,000 Kelvins. Duck and cover for thirty minutes until vaporized. Serve shadow of fish on platter with a spray of cilantro, al fresco.

Fusion cuisine at its finest. Enjoy!

Post-priandal fallout will undoubtedly be a dense shower of post-mortem praise, with memories lasting the half-life of your average radioactive isotope.

"Dinner's ready!"

It pains me to admit that How To Make An Atomic Bomb In Your Own Kitchen is light to non-existent on cooking, heavy on education for the 'Fifties justifiably freaked-out set but presented in a peaceful manner because atomic energy is, after all, our fiend friend.
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BALE, Bob. How To Make an Atomic Bomb in Your Own Kitchen (Well, Practically). New York: Frederick Fell Inc,. 1951. First edition. Octavo. 191, [1]  pp. Cloth. Dust jacket.

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Image courtesy of Coconut Rose Rare Books and Autographs, currently offering this volume, with our thanks.
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Books, Drugs, and Wallpaper

by Stephen J. Gertz

Struggling booksellers seeking new ways to broaden their client base and increase profits may wish to follow the model of F.W. Richter, who, in 1907, advertised in Tried and True: a Collection of Approved Recipes, a cookbook by the Trinity Church of Niles, Michigan issued by the Mennonite Publishing Co. of Elkhart, Indiana.

Like a wise investor, he held a diversified portfolio of inventory just shy of you name it. When book sales were down he could leverage the loss against sales of drugs, art, stationary, wallpaper, spices and extracts.

He even had promotional glass bottles made, a masterstroke as bookmarks are throwaways but bottles are forever and useful, particularly for storing pure extract of book while broadening brand awareness.

In 1907, nostrums containing heroin, morphine, and cocaine were readily available (though by then regulated) in drug stores. Considering that many of us believe that books produce a euphoric altered-state the retailing of drugs and books in concert, though cross-addiction a distinct possibility, makes perfect sense.

Not sure about the wallpaper, though.

Stacked paperback wallpaper from Anthropologie.

Unless it's book-oriented. Then, like Daniel, you can read the writing on the wall in the comfort of a den, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, u-Pharsin," y'know what I mean? Probably best, though, to keep the lions on a short leash, fed and sated.

• • • 

Mennonite Publishing Company, 1886.

The Mennonite Publishing Company existed from 1875-1925. "The Mennonite Publishing Company did an outstanding service in its book and periodical publications both in German and English, serving not only the Mennonites and Amish Mennonites but also a large block of the Russian Mennonite immigrants, particularly in Manitoba. For the latter group it published the Mennonitische Rundschau and hymnals, catechisms, and confessions of faith" (Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, p. 634).

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Bottle image courtesy of Bibliophemera, with our thanks.

Image of Mennonite Publishing Company courtesy of Gameo, with our thanks.
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Unicorn Recipe Discovered In Lost Medieval Cookbook Found In British Library

By Stephen J. Gertz

Detail of a unicorn on the grill in Geoffrey Fule's cookbook, England,
mid-14th century (London, British Library, MS Additional 142012, f. 137r).

"Taketh one unicorne," marinade with cloves and garlic, roast over an open fire, and serve.

So begins a recipe found in a long-lost 14th century medieval cookbook recently discovered in the British Library.

"We've been hunting for this book for years," said professor Brian Trump of the Medieval Cookbook Project. "The moment I first set my eyes on it was spine-tingling."

A lady bringing the unicorn's head to the table
(London, British Library, MS Additional 142012, f. 137v).

It is believed that the cookbook was compiled by Geoffrey Fule, Royal Chef to Philippa of Hainault, wife of Edward II and Queen of England 1328 - 1369.

In addition to roast unicorn, recipes for preparing tripe, herring, blackbirds, codswallop (a popular medieval fish stew), and gobsmack (a succulent gravy prepared with the boiled phlegm of royal pheasants), are found within the lushly illuminated manuscript. 

Scholarship strongly suggests that Fule's recipe for blackbirds forms the  basis for the traditional English nursery rhyme, "Sing a song of sixpence / A pocket full of rye / Four and twenty blackbirds / Baked in a pie."

The remains of the unicorn
(London, British Library, MS Additional 142012, f. 138r).

"Taketh one unicorne..."

But from whereth?

House of Meats, Tampa, FL.

Booktryst  made inquiries regarding  unicorn meat  to a sample  of American  purveyors  of fine animal protein.

House of Meat, Hamilton, NJ.

"We don't get as many calls for it as we used to," said one. "Fans appear to have taken it on the hoof because of PETA and pressure from the unicorn lobby," he continued. "It's unfortunate because, when braised, unicorn falls off the bone and is really quite tasty, a festival on the tongue. And when it hits the colon it's carnival time. It's cutting-edge carne, a fantasy come true for carnivores with intestinal fortitude."

The Meat House, all over the place.

 "Being on the Apocryphal Species Act list hasn't helped matters," an anonymous dealer, who wishes to remain under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's radar, said. "I've tried very hard to imagine smuggling one in but, no matter what the hallucinogen, I can't. The Dream Police at work.

"It's weird," he went on, "because even though it's impossible to get a hold of a unicorn, tricorns are a dime a dozen.

"Have you ever had tricorn chowder?"

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Read the full story at the British Library here. It was originally posted on April 1, 2012. Draw your own conclusions. 

Illuminated images courtesy of the British Library, with our thanks.

 Apologies and thanks to the Homes of Meat for the images.

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N.B.: The Law Offices of Codswallop & Gobsmack are pleased to announce the expansion of their practice to include two new partners, and will henceforth be known as Codswallop, Gobsmack, Hornswoggle, & Hoosegow.

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What's Cooking Down Under? Rare Cookbooks From Monash University

By Nancy Mattoon

Noble, Emily. Rabbit recipes.
(Melbourne : Victorian Rabbit Packers
and Exporters Association, [193-?]).

(All Images Courtesy of Sir Louis Matheson Library.)

Everyday life inside the average home is one of the hardest things for historians to document. Unlike business or political life, the inner workings of the domestic realm are essentially private and go largely unrecorded. A new exhibit at Australia's Monash University Library consists of a stellar collection of rare books which provide access to an essential aspect of the homemaker's secret world: food preparation. As Alexandra Michell's introduction to the show notes, "Because we must eat to live, food is therefore an absolute daily necessity, as well as the way in which we celebrate friendships, gatherings, and all sorts of special events...cookbooks document the history of food, giving us an insight into its availability and popularity at different times and in different cultures. Collections such as this one are helping to preserve the history of food and cooking."

The Australian women's weekly presents-
the teenagers' cook book :
from our Leila Howard test kitchen.
(Sydney : Australian Consolidated Press, 1969).

The collections of Monash's Sir Louis Matheson Library consist of "a large range of books from mainly France, England and Australia, dating from 1654 to the present day." The most unique titles in the Melbourne university's exhibition are those which cover the cooking culture of the Land Down Under. The show is so rich in material, that this brief Booktryst overview will be limited to only a sampling of those unusual and fascinating books concerning the history of Australian cookery.

The art of living in Australia / by Philip E. Muskett ;
together with three hundred Australian cookery recipes
and accessory kitchen information by Mrs. H. Wicken.
(London ; Melbourne : Eyre and Spottiswoode, [1892?]).

Author Philip Muskett was the Surgeon Superintendent to the New South Wales Government. Born in the Collingwood section of Melbourne, he despaired of "the fact that our people live in direct opposition to their semi-tropical environment." Muskett believed that his fellow Aussie's, "consumption of butcher's meat and of tea is enormously in excess of any common sense requirements, and is paralleled nowhere else in the world... " The doctor advocated greater consumption of local fish, oysters, fruits and vegetables, washed down with Australian wines rather than water or tea. Co-author Mrs. Wicken, a "Diplomee of the National Training School for Cookery, London; Lecturer on Cookery to the Technical College, Sydney," supplied the recipes and advice on setting up a proper kitchen, including the all important "ice chest," essential in Australia's tropical climate.

The Kingswood cookery book / by H. F. Wicken.
6th ed., rev. and enl.
(Melbourne : Whitcombe & Tombs, [1913]).

Harriet Frances Wicken published the first edition of her Kingswood cookery book in London in 1885. A revised, Australian edition of her book appeared in 1889 and went through six editions to 1913. In the introduction to the first edition, Mrs. Wicken stressed the importance of culinary skills to women: "The art of good cooking (if I may call it so) is so absolutely necessary to the comfort and well-being of all classes of the community, that I think its value cannot be over-estimated. A dinner well cooked promotes digestion, and conduces to contentment and happiness. I hope that the day is not far distant when cookery will form an important item in the education of our girls."

Cookery recipes for the people / by Miss Pearson.
2nd ed.
(Melbourne : Australasian American Trading Co., 1889)
[Cover title: Australian cookery : recipes for the people]

Margaret J. Pearson was the cooking instructor at the Melbourne Workingmen’s College. The recipes in this book are from classes she gave for the Metropolitan Gas Co. at the 1888 Centennial Exhibition in Melbourne, held to celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of European settlement in Australia. According to a newspaper account of the event, these classes were attended by "maids and matrons of every degree in the social scale from the general servant who wishes to qualify for the more important office of cook, to the lady of fashion, who, for the moment, has 'taken up' cookery as her latest and most engrossing fad."

Mrs. Lance Rawson's cookery book
and household hints.
3rd ed., enl. and rev.
(Rockhampton, [Qld.] : William Hopkins, 1890).
[Cover title: The Queensland
cookery and poultry book.]

Wilhelmina Frances Rawson was born in Sydney and lived in North Queensland. Her Queensland cookery and poultry book was first published in 1878. Her purpose in writing the book was to provide a useful cookbook to the homemaker living in the bush having, "scant material to work with." She encouraged the inventive use of local food sources, to wit: "When I tell my friends that we often eat Bandicoots, Kangaroo Rats, Wallaby, and Paddymelon, they look astonished, and yet there is no reason they should not be good for human food, as they all live on grass or roots. Often a young bush housekeeper is at her wits' end when killing-day is postponed, and the beef has run out, little knowing that she has materials for a sumptuous repast not far from her kitchen."

Australian economic cookery book
and housewife's companion /
by F. Fawcett Story.
(Sydney : Kealy & Philip, 1900).

Mrs. Story taught cooking at Sydney Technical College and at Hurlstone Teachers Training College in the 1880s and 1890s. The frontispiece shows one of her cooking classes. In her preface she emphasizes the need for girls to learn basic, everyday cooking, "As it is, when girls do attend cookery classes for a term or two, it is generally only with the idea of learning to make scones and cakes, nice little supper dishes for company, etc., and very rarely indeed with the object of making themselves so thoroughly acquainted with the art and science of cookery as to fit them to take charge of households."

Kimberley cook book.
Some old recipes and some new ones.
[Recipes by Marianne Yambo ... [et al. ;
lino prints by Marianne Yambo ... [et al.] ;
printed and edited by Jan Palethorpe]
[Western Australia] : Jan Palethorpe, [1997?]

The Matheson Library's copy of this collection of aboriginal recipes from the Kimberley region of North-Western Australia is Number One of only 20 copies printed. It contains traditional recipes from native peoples, and is illustrated with linoleum cuts of ancient symbols created by aboriginal artists. It is written in a conversational style, emphasizing the oral tradition of the Australian Aboriginals. These natives of the continent did not have written languages when first encountered by Europeans. Their songs, stories, legends, chants, and recipes made up a rich oral literature with incredible diversity among various tribes. When British colonists arrived in Botany Bay in 1788, there were over 250 spoken Aboriginal languages with 600 dialects. Their subtle and complex culture has only been carefully studied, and appreciated, since the mid-20th century.

87 Kitchen Inspirations.
(Brisbane : Simpson Bros. Pty. Ltd., 1938).

This is only a tiny selection of the over 100 rare books on display at the Sir Louis Matheson Library, and in the excellent virtual exhibition created for online visitors. The show celebrates the gift of valuable seventeenth to nineteenth century French and English cookbooks made to the Library by Alexandra (Sandy) Michell, beginning in 1988. Ms. Michell has also made generous financial donations to the Matheson Library, allowing the collection to be enriched and expanded to include a fine collection of early Australian cookbooks, and a selection of twentieth century material. Additionally, Ms. Michell has written an insightful introduction to the exhibition, which has been made available on the Library's website.

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Britain's Original Celebrity Chef: Alexis Soyer

By Nancy Mattoon

Portrait of Alexis Soyer in 1849,
By His Wife, Elizabeth Emma Jones.
(All images Courtesy of The British Library.)

With the arteries of the television airwaves virtually clogged with shows like Hell's Kitchen, Top Chef, Iron Chef, and Ace of Cakes, we tend to think of celebrity chefs as a relatively recent phenomenon. But earlier in the twentieth century Julia Child, James Beard, and Alice Waters were all at the top of their game, each establishing a culinary empire through restaurants, television appearances, and cookbooks.

Soyer's Name And Likeness Appeared On The Labels
Of His Many Kitchen Necessities.

In fact, to find the man generally accepted as the first celebrity chef, we must go all the way back to 18th century France, where Antonin Careme became internationally renowned as "The King of Chefs, and the Chef of Kings," after commanding the kitchens of Napoleon, the Romanovs, the Rothschilds, Rossini and King George IV. And a new online exhibit of cookbooks created by the British library highlights a 19th century chef who was at once a shameless self-promoter; an advertising genius; an advocate for the poor, the working class, and the infantryman; a masterful culinary innovator and inventor; and one of the most famous men in Victorian England: Alexis Soyer. He was the first English celebrity chef.

Soyer's Shilling Cookery for the People,
Published in 1855.

There's more than a little irony in the British Library being the organization putting Alexis Soyer back in the spotlight. Soyer was a transplanted Frenchman, who could read and write in his native tongue, but mastered only spoken English. The seven books he "wrote" in English were all dictated to an amanuensis, at first his English wife, and later a series of secretaries. This may be why several of Soyer's cookbooks were presented as chummy "letters" penned to an imaginary friend, allowing for much less formal language than was normally required of a Victorian writer. But however lacking in literary style, Soyer's books were both influential and popular, especially those aimed at home cooks with modest incomes.

Alexis Soyer was born in suburban Paris in 1810, and probably would have remained there had it not been for the French Revolution of 1830. As Soyer told the story, which may or may not have been true, he was well on his way to a stellar culinary career as sous chef in the French Foreign Office, when his kitchen was literally invaded by an angry mob. Two of his fellow chefs were summarily executed before his eyes, and Soyer would have been next, had he not broken into song, offering a rousing rendition of "La Marseillaise." The singing chef had once had aspirations to the stage, and was said to possess a deeply melodious and pleasing bass voice. Whether due to his talent or his song selection, Soyer claimed he was not only spared by the mob, he was carried off on their shoulders to cheers and applause.

Title Page And Frontispiece From An 1858 Edition
Of Soyer's Most Popular Cookbook.

Despite looming stardom in the music halls of Paris, Soyer left his homeland for the calmer shores of England posthaste. By 1831 he has established himself as chef to the Duke of Cambridge, and posts with other members of the nobility were to follow. In 1837 he was given his big break, as chef for the newly established Reform Club of London. Soyer designed the ultra-modern, state-of-the-art kitchen for this private meeting place of the more liberal Members of Parliament. It included innovations that today's cooks take for granted, such as gas-powered stoves, temperature-adjustable ovens, and refrigerators cooled by ice water. So valued was Soyer's talent that he was paid the then-exorbitant yearly salary of 1,000 pounds sterling, and he was enlisted to cook breakfast for 2,000 dignitaries at Queen Victoria's coronation.

A Typical Full Page Ad For One Of Soyer's Products,
Included In His Cookbooks' At No Extra Charge.

But cooking and publishing cookbooks were only part of Soyer's culinary trade. He also marketed a huge range of products, all carrying his name, likeness, and endorsement; including sauces, relishes, cooking gadgets, and tabletop stoves. Like many Victorian volumes, Soyer's recipe books included full page advertisements, encouraging readers who purchased his books to spend a little more of their household income on his unparalleled kitchen accoutrements. But Soyer wasn't completely mercenary, donating a portion of the proceeds from many of his books to various charities. And he was widely praised for setting up the first fully functional soup kitchens to aid victims of the Irish Potato Famine in 1847. (Although his famous recipe for inexpensive broth was lambasted in Punch as "not Soup for the Poor, but rather, Poor Soup!" )

A Elaborate Dessert, Designed By Sawyer
In Honor of His Longtime Love, Dancer Fanny Cerrito.

Soyer's fame as a chef was eclipsed only by the personal eccentricities that ensured he would always be the center of Victorian London's attention. He never forgot his childhood dreams of the stage, retaining an artistic and theatrical air throughout his life. His wife was a well-known portraitist whose work was displayed in the National Portrait Gallery, and upon her death he began a long-term affair with Fanny Cerrito, a famed prima ballerina. His dress, both in the kitchen and out, was outlandishly dandified. In place of chef's white, he wore embroidered silk suits in pastel shades of violet and green. And he even devised his own mode of tailoring, which he fancifully coined "dressing a la zoug-zoug." This meant all of his garments were cut along the bias or zig-zag, and sewn on the diagonal. Such was his abhorrence of horizontal and vertical lines that his hats were specially made to rest at a rakish angle, even his "carte de visite" was a parallelogram rather than a rectangle.

Soyer's Shapely Carte de Visite,
Displayed On A Black Backdrop.

The last thing one might expect from such a flamboyant showman would be an appearance on the battlefield, but during the Crimean War in the 1850's, this is precisely where Soyer chose to lend a hand, and where his longest standing contribution to culinary history was established. Soyer joined British troops on the continent at his own expense, and at great danger, to reorganize the provisioning of army hospitals alongside Florence Nightingale. He designed a field stove which was so efficient it remained in use through the First Gulf War in 1990. And he trained enough cooks for one to serve each regiment, ensuring that good nutrition and food safety would promote the morale and health of the English soldier. London's Morning Chronicle said of Soyer, "he saved as many lives through his kitchens as Florence Nightingale did through her wards."

The Famous Soyer Stove,
Used By The British Military For Nearly 150 Years.

Despite his many achievements, Soyer's flamboyance ensured he came in for his fair share of lampooning and ridicule. His good friend, William Makepeace Thackeray, poked gentle fun at the chef in an 1849 novel, Pendennis. His parody of Soyer is an outlandish French chef named "Alcide Mirobolant," a foppish womanizer who relocates to a small English village, determined to seduce every female who crosses his path. The Times of London criticized him much more savagely. Reviewing his book about his time in the Crimea, Soyer's Culinary Campaign (1857), the newspaper noted, "Alexis the Savoury opens his box of condiments, and shows us indisputably how fields are won. Such and such proportions of pepper and salt went to make such a breach or to repulse such a night attack."

A Punch Cartoon Of Soyer's Melodramatic
Resignation As Chef Of The Reform Club.

But in Victorian times, as today, for a celebrity the only thing worse than bad publicity is no publicity. Soyer remained one of the best-known figures in Victorian England until his death in 1858. Sadly, at the end of his life, Soyer was broke, and at the mercy of creditors. They seized his assets and destroyed most of his correspondence and his personal diaries, erasing much of his legacy. He was nearly a forgotten figure, until the first reliable biography of his life was published in 2008. Ruth Cowan's, Relish: The Extraordinary Life of Alexis Soyer, Victorian Celebrity Chef, returned the larger-than-life culinary star to center stage, where he undoubtedly belongs.

The Radical Firebrand Behind America's Favorite Thanksgiving Poem

By Nancy Mattoon

Is there any American holiday more old-fashioned and more traditional than Thanksgiving? And does any bit of poetry sum up its virtues better than these familiar verses?

Over the river, and through the wood,
to Grandfather's house we go;
the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to Grandfather's house away!
We would not stop for doll or top,
for 'tis Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood-
oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes and bites the nose,
as over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood
and straight through the barnyard gate.
We seem to go extremely slow-
it is so hard to wait!

Over the river, and through the wood-
when Grandmother sees us come,
She will say, "O, dear, the children are here,
bring a pie for every one."

Over the river, and through the wood-
now Grandmothers cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!

These words were originally published as a poem, entitled A Boy's Thanksgiving Day, in 1844. The woman who wrote them, Lydia Maria Child, was best known at that time for writing the first cookbook in America which was produced for the middle class and the poor. Until the publication of The Frugal Housewife (1829), cookbook writers assumed their reader was a wealthy lady of the manor with servants, cooks, and perhaps even slaves.

The Frugal Housewife,
Dedicated to Those Who Are Not Ashamed of Economy.
By Lydia Maria Francis Child.
Boston: Carter and Hendee, 1830.
(Image Courtesy of Michigan State University Libraries.)

The Frugal Housewife, later entitled The American Frugal Housewife to avoid confusion with a British book of the same name, was the 19th century equivalent of The Joy of Cooking. In the New England Quarterly, historian Herbert Edwards describes it as "one of the most popular . . . books published in New England in the 1830's.... it had gone through fourteen editions by 1834, and for years continued to be one of the most treasured books of the average New England household." According to Michigan State University's excellent website devoted to historic American cookbooks, "The book went through at least 35 printings between 1829 and 1850 when it was allowed to go out of print because of the publication of newer, more modern cookbooks and also because of Mrs. Child's increasingly public work in the cause of anti-slavery."

That last part is a bit of an understatement. In 1833 Lydia Maria Child, a woman, published the first book-length, full-scale analysis of slavery in the United States, An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans. It was, says the Michigan State website, "so comprehensive [in] scope that no other antislavery writer ever attempted to duplicate Child's achievement; all subsequent works would focus on individual aspects of the subject that Child covered in eight thoroughly researched and extensively documented chapters." It was also radical enough, and shocking enough, coming from America's best-loved culinary writer, that it caused Child to be ostracized from Boston society, and caused the children's magazine she edited to go bankrupt, as well as leading to the out-of-print status of her best-seller. Nobody wanted Martha Stewart to do an about face, and begin writing inflammatory political manifestos.

Radical Firebrand Lydia Maria Child, c.1870.
(Image Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

The truth is, the woman who wrote that charming ditty we trot out every Thanksgiving was a radical free thinker who was at least a hundred years ahead of her time. In 1824 she published her first novel, Hobomok, A Tale of the Times, in which a Puritan woman marries a Native American, and bears his child. The book's plot is melodramatic, but its depiction of an interracial marriage was amazingly daring. Child was a lifelong advocate of Native American rights when such an opinion was extremely unusual and wildly unpopular. In 1868 she published An Appeal for the Indians, which demanded that the government, and religious leaders, bring justice to the American Indian.

Frontispiece From:

An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans,
By Mrs. Child.
Boston: Allen & Ticknor, 1833.
(Image Courtesy of University of Michigan Clements Library.)

Lydia Maria Child made no bones about her belief in full equal rights for Native Americans, African Americans, and women. Although she did not write feminist literature, reasoning that racial inequality needed to be addressed before the inequality of the sexes, she demonstrated that a woman could write and publish books beyond the domestic realm. She was the first American female ever to make a living solely as a writer.

Even Child's famous cookbook was in many ways a radical text. She sees the home as a miniature economy, in which time, materials, and labor must be as carefully allocated as in any business or factory. The subtitle of The Frugal Housewife was: Dedicated To Those Who Are Not Ashamed Of Economy. In her introduction she tells those women "who can afford to be epicures," to put down her book and pick up Eliza Leslie's cookbook, Seventy-five Receipts For Pastry, Cakes, And Sweetmeats (1832). A reverse "let them eat cake" dismissal of the upper class readers that Child disdained. A vocal critic of The Frugal Housewife was a former suitor of Child's, Nathaniel P. Willis, who found the book a total betrayal of her class, "full of vulgarisms, indelicate references to animal body parts, and an apparent fondness for foods highly despised by genteel readers." A truly well-bred female would never have demeaned herself by writing about money.

Image From The Title Page of:
An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans,
By Mrs. Child.
Boston: Allen & Ticknor, 1833.
(Image Courtesy of University of Michigan Clements Library.)

Lydia Maria Child is remembered today for her Thanksgiving poem, which conjures up a nostalgic vision of the perfect old-fashioned holiday. But her real legacy is as a zealous and tireless crusader against the horrific injustices which were so easily accepted by most members of her race and class. If you are of a more liberal persuasion, but are spending the holiday with conservative friends or relatives, why not suggest a sing-along featuring Child's famous lyrics? Your fellow celebrants will think you've gone all warm, fuzzy, and traditional. And only you will know they are all singing the phrases of one of America's greatest and most uncompromising radical writers.

To all seekers of equality and justice, a Happy Thanksgiving from Booktryst.

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Betty Crocker's Ancestors: Vintage Advertising Cookbooks

by Stephen J. Gertz

Magic Cookbook and Housekeepers Guide
Toronto: E. W. Gillett, Co., n.d. (ca. 192-?)
5 1/2 x 3 1/4 in. Wrappers.  62pp.

In 1474 the Italian humanist Bartolomeo Platina (1421-1481) compiled and published in Rome the first printed and dated cookbook, De honesta voluptate et valetudine, Libri de arte coquinaria, haute cuisine, Libro novo (Of Honorable Pleasure and Health), a monument to medieval and Renaissance cuisine. In Latin, it was reprinted in many subsequent editions, and translated into Italian, German, and French (it was a best-seller in Paris). In 1475 Platina was  named Vatican librarian by Pope Sixtus IV.

Pope Sixtus IV appoints Bartolomeo Platina prefect of the Vatican Library.
Fresco by Melozzo da Forlì, c. 1477 (Vatican Museums)

Eleven years later, in 1486, Küchenmeisterei (Cooking Mastery), a book sometimes and erroneously attributed to Gutenberg (out of business since the late 1450s, his print shop taken over by his financial partner, Johann Fust, after a lawsuit in 1455), was published by Peter Wagner (f. 1483-1500) in Nuremberg.

These cook books in print - the earliest known - were successfully sent out into the world for sale at a profit. At some point, however, in the early 1900s, a brilliant marketer decided to publish a recipe book to promote the sale of his product. Very soon, just about every manufacturer of foodstuffs adopted the idea and a minor deluge of small, branded cookbooks in softcover flooded the marketplace.

Reliable Recipes
Chicago: Calumet Baking Powder Co., n.d. (ca. 192-?)
5 1/4" x 8 1/2 in. Wrappers. 80pp.
With colour and b/w illustrations.

The books were free. The point was to spread the word about the superiority of the product and the many ways it could be used to transform the average housewife into a kitchen-to-dinner table goddess and thus win the hearts of husband, children, and dinner guests; the books "encouraged women to diligently and happily cook family meals" (Neuhaus, J. Manly Meals and Mom's Home Cooking: Cookbooks and Gender in Modern America, 2003).

Royal Baker and Pastry Cook
New York: Royal Baking Powder Co., (c. 1902).
8 x 5 in. Wrappers. 42pp.

It was a great way to move merchandise off the shelves, a brilliant stroke of huckster advertising that was highly successful in marketing the slew of new convenience foods and old staples by presenting different and useful recipes that incorporated the product.

Yeast Foam Recipes
(Chicago): (Northwestern Yeast Co.), n.d. (ca. 193-?).
 6 x 3 in. Wrappers with single staple at top.
12pp. With illustrations.

The success of these branded cookbooks reflected the Home Economics movement of the late nineteenth century that continued at full steam into the twentieth century, college women studying "domestic science" to improve the nutrition and health of the family.

Salad Secrets
Montreal: Colman-Keen, 1928.
8 1/4 x 5 1/2 in. Wrappers. 22pp.

A Friend in Need
(Montreal): Church & Dwight, (c. 1924).
5 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. Wrappers. 28pp.

"Typical upwardly-aspiring Anglo-American middle class families in the 1910s took cues from meals suggested by period cook books. Technology was moving quickly; foods were readily available, in and out of season. World War I imposed unexpected challenges. Here we catch early glimpses of American discomfit reconciling traditional Old World dishes (read: heritage) with newly formed alliances (read: opportunity). Most American print sources proclaim culinary nationalism (aka the 'melting pot') was summarily celebrated and embraced. For the unity of the country. How else to explain Lasagne with American cheese and Chop Suey with American hamburger?" (Food Timeline.org).

Good Things To Eat
Montreal: Church & Dwight, c. 1924.
5 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. Wrappers. 32pp.

The Magic Baking Powder Cookbook
Toronto: E. W. Gillett, Co., n.d. (ca. 193-?).
9 x 6 in. Wrappers. 32pp.

There was the belief "that the application of science to domestic problems could save society from the social disintegration they saw at the turn of the century. This program of science education for women had benefits and limitations. On the positive side, women could pursue science degrees in higher education....

Magic Cookbook and Housekeepers Guide
Toronto: E. W. Gillett Co., n.d. (ca. 192-?).
5 3/4 x 3 1/2 in. Wrappers. (64)pp.

Sixty-Five Delicious Recipes Made With Bread
(Philadelphia): The Fleischmann Co. (yeast), (c. 1919).
7 x 5 in. Wrappers. 32pp. With illustrations.

"...On the negative side, the existence of home economics departments enabled schools to direct women interested in science into a sex‐segregated educational track and sex‐segregated occupations, with relatively low prestige and limited resources" (Paul S. Boyer. Home Economics Movement. The Oxford Companion to United States History).

The Art of Baking Bread
Chicago: Northwestern Yeast Co., n.d. (ca. 192-?)..
8 x 5 in. Wrappers. 16pp. With colour illustrations.

Baumert Cheese Recipes
NP: (F. X. Baumert Co.), (ca. 192-?).
6 1/2 x 4 3/4 in. Wrappers. 30pp.
With colour and b/w illustrations.
"Compliments of Chateau Cheese Co. Ltd. Ottawa"

Amaizo Cook Book
New York: American Maize-Products Co., 1926.
6 x 9 in. Wrappers. 38pp.

The Genesee Pure Food Company, makers of Jell-O, was the first to issue promotional cookbooks in a major way. A product of the Victorian Age, Jell-O was introduced by carpenter and cough syrup manufacturer Pearle B. Wait in 1897. It flopped. In 1899 Wait sold the patent to Orator F. Woodward for $450, and Woodward, a marketing whiz, began to heavily advertise the product. Jell-O remained a minor success until 1904 when Genesee blanketed the nation with salesmen to distribute free Jell-O cookbooks, a pioneering marketing tactic at the time. 

The Jell-O Cook Book
Le Roy, NY: Genesee Pure Food Company, n.d. (c. 1910-15)

"In some years as many as fifteen million booklets were distributed. Noted artists such as Rose O'Neill, Maxfield Parrish, Coles Phillips, Norman Rockwell, Linn Ball, and Angus MacDonald made Jell-O a household word with their colored illustrations" (Le Roy, NY Historical Society).

By 1909, gross sales of Jell-O reached over a million dollars. There was no disputing the power of advertising cookbooks to sell product, and more than a few manufacturers adopted the tactic. By 1913, Jell-O sales had doubled. If there was any doubt left about the magic that these branded cookbooks could conjure for the bottom-line it disappeared in a puff of smoke, and just about every company involved in selling foodstuffs published them.

Betty Crocker's  Picture Cookbook
NY: McGraw-Hill/Genreal Mills, 1950.
First edition.

This ultimately led to the most popular branded cookbook ever published, Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook, the brainchild of General Mills which created the fictitious character to pitch their flour, introduced her through promotional cookbook pamphlets, then on the new medium of radio in the country's first cooking show, and later, in 1950, published what would become the most popular cookbook of all time, Betty Crocker's magnum opus. By 1991, in its seventh edition, it had sold twenty-six million copies and an incredible number of General Mills products.

These early advertising cookbooks are fun and not terribly expensive to collect for the info, the illustrations, and their history: vintage slices of American domestic life and womanhood.
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With the exception of the Amaizo, Betty Crocker, and Jello cookbooks, all images courtesy of David Mason Books eList 22/
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