The way we were Old cookbooks let us glimpse history

AP

DALLAS--Carefully turning the yellowed pages of old cookbooks,written by settlers a century or more ago, conjures up a time whenlard was a common ingredient, puddings were all the rage anddirections for measurements might read "a teacup full."

The value of recipes in old cookbooks isn't always culinary; theyoften lack accurate measurements and fail to give cooking directions.Just ask Cammie Vitale Shuman, a former cooking teacher, cookbookeditor and part-time caterer, who attempted a muffin recipe from oneof the books.

"They came out as hard as lead," she recalls. "The older thecookbook, the less likely you are to have satisfaction from therecipes in them."

The books have historical value for Vitale Shuman, curator ofSouthern Methodist University's collection of about 275 cookbooksfrom the 1870s to 1935.

"We want to have cookbooks here that help us unravel the culturalhistory of Western people," she says about the cookbooks, which yieldtremendous information about the fiber of local communities.

"They were done by charitable and church organizations, and weassume that many of them were done to finance the programs that thosechurch and civic and charitable organizations had in their localcommunity," she says.

After the Civil War, there was a growth in the range of women'scivic and community organizations, as seen in the sponsorship ofcookbooks, says Crista DeLuzio, assistant history professor at theuniversity.

"Women are drawing on their traditional functions, but using thatto claim a larger space in the public sphere," says DeLuzio, whoplans to use the growing collection in her classes.

The cookbook collection is part of the university's DeGolyerLibrary of rare books, specializing in Western Americana. It wasstarted less than two years ago. Most of the books, which range invalue from several hundred dollars to less than $10, were found byscanning eBay and other Internet vendors. The library is, of course,always looking for donations.

Many of the books contain interesting asides, includingadvertisements that provide insight into the lifestyles of anothertime.

In an 1876 cookbook from Des Moines, a man identified only as Dr.Aborn held himself out to Iowa readers as an "oculist, aurist,catarrh, throat & lung physician . . . and specialist for chronicdiseases generally." The ad helpfully pointed out that Des Moines was"accessible by railroad to the five or six adjoining states."

Recipes in the old books feature delicacies such as pork cake. TheTexas Cook Book, believed to be the first cookbook in the state,offers a cough syrup formula featuring 20 grains of opium. Thelibrary has two facsimiles of that 1883 book from the Ladies'Association of the First Presby-terian Church in Houston and wouldlike an original.

The home remedies show that women were also expected to cure ills.

"Up until the 1920s or so, if you went to a hospital, you wentthere to die," says Susan Mitchell Sommers, history professor atSaint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa. "Medical doctors were few andfar between."

Sommers said drug use was common in the 19th century and manypeople grew items such as opium poppies in their gardens forremedies.

Most of the older cookbooks didn't find it necessary to givecooking instructions. Choice Receipts, published in 1873 to help payfor the building of a girl's school in Walla Walla in what is nowWashington state, gives the following recipe for pound cake: onepound of sugar, 3/4 pound of butter, 10 eggs, one pound of flour andsome grated nutmeg.

"They assumed that the cooks knew their way around the kitchen,"Vitale Shuman says. "There's nothing really that passes fordirections in these things."

Most recipes were handed down through families or friends, andprecise instructions for temperatures weren't included in the earlycookbooks because cooks were working with wood or coal burningstoves, in which heat was difficult to control.

Another limitation: Ingredients were often locally availableitems. Wild plums, pecans and hickory nuts were popular in recipes innortheast and east and central Texas in the early cookbooks.

The later books in the collection tend to have better directionsand use standard measurements. A recipe for fig pudding from a 1931book from Paris, Texas, gives measurements in cups and pounds andeven gives a boiling time. But it also calls for "butter the size ofan egg."

Puddings are extremely popular in the books, and recipes forsweets often make up half or more of the offerings. There are alsooddities: Some books from landlocked states call for oysters.

Russell Martin, director of the DeGolyer Library, said the bookscould be used in the teaching of several subjects, including women'sstudies, advertising and history.

"They're a nice mirror of the times in which they were produced,"he said.