Food-Drink

Machina Coelestis

Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) is justly famous as an astronomer, but his livelihood came from the family’s brewing business, and Johannes himself was admitted to the Brewer’s Guild in 1636. His interests lay elsewhere, however. Devoting himself to constructing astronomical instruments and, most importantly, to carefully and precisely grinding lenses for telescopes, he developed an extremely well-equipped 17th-century observatory in Danzig, Poland.

American Entomology

Thomas Say (1787-1834) was a self-taught naturalist who has come to be considered the Father of American Entomology.  In 1812 he became one of the founding/charter members of the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia and actually lived at the Academy and tended its small museum for several years.  He also began publishing this book – part 1 came out in 1817 – but his participation in several scientific expeditions delayed its completion until later in the 1820s.  In this and other works he described and named over 1400 species of insects (especially beetles).

Bibliographie des Kaffee, des Kakao, der Schokolade, des Tee

This bibliography on coffee, cacao, chocolate, and tea documents the long history of interest in these stimulating and popular beverages and is part of the Cullman Library’s reference collection.  Legend has it that coffee was discovered by a goat herder in the Ethiopian highlands who noticed that after eating the berries his goats would not go to sleep at night.  That story may not be in this bibliography, but from 16th-century herbals which first illustrated the plants to the rules of the Coffee Tavern Protection Society in 1889 (who knew?), this book has the subject covered.  Aside from

A Monograph of the Testudinata

A leading English zoologist who worked with Charles Darwin on the reptiles from the voyage of the Beagle, Thomas Bell (1792-1880) intended this earlier work to summarize all of the world’s turtles, both living and extinct.  Issued in parts by subscription, it ran into financial difficulties and was never completed.  Nevertheless, it is famous for its illustrations, drawn from living specimens by James de Carle Sowerby and lithographed by Edward Lear, who imbued each animal with life and individuality.  Yes, it is the “nonsense” Edward Lear; he was also a respected natural-history artist, an

Les Pigeons

Pauline de Courcelles Knip (1781-1851) was a bird artist in Paris who had studied under the famed French artist Jacques Barraband.  She appropriated ornithologist Coenraad Temminck’s work on the pigeon family as text for her remarkable illustrations of pigeons.  These 147 folio plates are the richest and most delicate illustrations of this group of birds ever produced.  Printed in colors and finished by hand, the 87 engraved plates in volume 1 were first published in parts in 1809-1811 and then, reissued in 1838 (as in this copy) when the second volume began appearing.

Neu Vollkommenes Krauter-Buch

Pietro Mattioli (1501-1577), a physician and botanist, first published his commentaries on the classic work on medical botany from antiquity – Dioscorides’ De materia medica – in 1544 in Italian.  He identified the plants that the ancient Greek had discussed as being medically useful and added dozens of new ones known from other parts of Europe.  Mattioli’s work was quickly translated into numerous European languages and re-published for more than a century as the standard text on the subject.  This edition – in German, dated 1678 – is evidence of the work’s enduring value.  This b

American Fishes

Ichthyologist George Brown Goode (1851-1896) spent his entire career at the Smithsonian Institution as an assistant to Spencer F. Baird, primarily responsible for administering the National Museum (when the Smithsonian had only the one location in what is now the Arts and Industries Building, next to the Smithsonian Castle on the National Mall).  Despite that workload, he also led research for the U.S. Fish Commission and published more than 100 scientific reports and papers.  This copy of his American fishes is inscribed by Goode to Otis T.

A Treatise on Brewing

Intended for both professional and home-brewers, in an era when most people did brew their own, this book was in such demand that it stayed in print for decades through the early 1800s and has become a classic in the history of brewing.  This copy is the 3rd edition, published in 1802.

The Pantropheon, or, History of Food, and Its Preparation

The son of a grocer, appropriately enough, Alexis Soyer (1810-1858) became a famous chef, indeed perhaps the first-ever “celebrity chef.”  Apprenticed at a restaurant in Paris, he quickly rose in the profession to become the chef for several French and English aristocrats and subsequently cemented his reputation as the chef de cuisine at the Reform Club in London.  Impressively – considering his clientele – he took an active interest in providing soup kitchens for the poor during the Irish famine of 1847 and worked with the British Army in the Crimea to improve the provisioning of army hosp

How to Mix Drinks

Collecting and standardizing what had been until then a hodge-podge of oral traditions and regional customs, this was the first recipe book for mixed drinks published in the United States.  Jeremiah Thomas (1830-1885) was a bartender who owned various saloons in New York City and worked in others in California (during the Gold Rush), St.

A Treatise on Brewing

Intended for both professional and home-brewers, in an era when most people did brew their own, this book was in such demand that it stayed in print for decades through the early 1800s and has become a classic in the history of brewing.  This copy is the 5th edition published in 1815.

The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table

This collection of Yankee essays by beloved American author Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. was originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1857, a magazine that Holmes named.  Eventually published in book form, this second edition copy is about as American as apple pie with a side of New England cheddar.  Published in Boston in 1859, it still boasts its original, austere, American publishers' cloth binding typical of the mid-19th century.  The essays are "dramedy" vignettes about a fictional Boston boardinghouse and the breakfast conversations among residents therein.

Adventures in Good Eating

Duncan Hines was neither a baker nor a cook. He was a traveling salesman who ate out a lot. One year with their Christmas card, he and his wife Florence sent out a list of over 100 of their favorite eating establishments. The list was later formally published in 1935 and grew into one of the most respected and used travel guides in the United States. This edition, published in 1946, includes a section recommending domestic wines as alternatives to the post-war European wine shortage in America. Californian wine-greats Paul Masson and Inglenook Vineyards are recommended.

Electric Refrigerator Menus and Recipes

This 2nd edition of Electric refrigerator menus and recipes: recipes prepared especially for the General Electric refrigerator is dedicated to the "Modern Homemaker" and authored by the renowned dietitian, cookbook author, and radio show hostess Miss Alice Bradley, Principle of Miss (Fannie!) Farmer's School of Cookery in Boston, MA.

The Theory and Practice of Brewing

The owner of a brewery and several public houses in Hampstead, then a suburb of London, author Michael Combrune wrote this book as an expanded version of an earlier work, incorporating his experiments on malts and fermentation, among other aspects of the brewing and wine-making trades.  Scientifically minded, he pioneered the thermometer as a crucial diagnostic tool for these processes.  The Libraries' copy was acquired in a major purchase of trade literature from the Franklin Institute in 1986.       

Short Cuts to Good Eating

Short cuts to good eating: unusual and new recipes for using home canned foods was published by Kerr Glass Manufacturing Corporation. Ruth Kerr, the then-President of the 46 year old company, designed this post-war domestic guide with an eye to food preservation and thrift. "How-to-do-it" canning and recipes are included as well as a complimentary perforated sheet of ephemeral glue-treated jar labels which are still intact. See page 23 on how to can bone in steaks!

Das Weisse Haus Kochbuch

Translated into German from the original “White House cookbook” first published in 1887, this book served the rising and prospering German-speaking immigrant population of the period.  As the lengthy sub-title tells us, it’s more than just a cookbook –it is an encyclopaedic compendium of recipes for foods, salves and medicaments, lotions and personal products, cleaning and polishing compounds, etc.

Joys of Jell-O Gelatin Dessert

This is the first of many editions of The Joys of Jell-o gelatin dessert. It includes many striking color illustrations. Before the invention of gelatin in a powdered form by Jell-o in 1897, making gelatin was time-consuming, expensive, and reserved for the well-to-do. The affordability of Jell-o actually shifted the socio-economic consumption of gelatin to the average consumer. By the 1920s, with the advent of electric refrigeration, the popularity of gelatin desserts soared. Then in the 1930s, congealed salads both sweet and savory entered the domestic scene.

Recipes Issued by the Washington Gas Light Company, Home Service Department, Washington, D.C.

This grouping of mimeographed recipes by Ruth Sheldon the Director of the Home Services Department of the Washington Gas Light Company are likely the earliest edition(s) of recipe collections that would later be published in book form by the Company. The kitchen-tested and nutritious recipes were a promotional courtesy to new customers of modern gas light ranges. Sheldon's Bachelor of Science degree in Home Economics and teaching backgroud parlayed nicely into a career during WWII in Washington, D.C.

The White House Cook Book

First published in 1887, this book proved enormously popular and stayed in print for decades (each new edition featuring a frontispiece portrait of the current First Lady).  Co-author Hugo Ziemann served as steward in the White House, providing the book its title, but Mrs.

La Nouvelle Cuisine

An early edition of the first treaty of gastronomy by Menon. The title of this volume translates to: New treaty of the kitchen, with new designs for tables and twenty-four menus. The book contains 24 menus and about a thousand recipes, and is illustrated with 12 boards representing oval, rectangular, and horseshoe table plans for 14 to 80 seats with ornate centerpieces, jars oille, girandoles , etc., and other tables and their instructions for their precise decoration.

Baker's Best Chocolate Recipes

Baker's Chocolate in Dorcester, Massachusetts was in business more than 150 years before Baker's best chocolate recipes was published.  Baker's became a division of General Mills in 1927 and this booklet published in 1932, offers to its customers a history of the company, as well as, an armchair history of chocolate as the "food of the gods."  There are a slew of classic chocolate baked goods in here.  What baby boomer didn't have a grandmother that made fudge with nut meats?  Based on the condition of this cookbook, this may well be where your grandmother got the recipe.

Royal Baker and Pastry Cook

The Royal baker and pastry cook: a manual of practical receipts for home baking and cooking by the Royal Baking Powder Company has become a royal mess.  Promotional cookbooks like this were never meant to survive; they were manufactured as ephemera to be distributed to customers on a local level to promote sales.  Their primary purpose was to advertise and promote their domestic usefulness.  (Helpful hint:  use baking powder to reduce the amount of eggs used in a recipe!)  This copy was provided to a Pennsylvania homemaker compliments of Hall Kaul & Hyde Co. of St.

The Royal No.10 Cook Book

The Adath Joseph Sisterhood of St. Joseph, Missouri was a Jewish Ladies Auxilary in the nation's breadbasket.  This recipe compilation is undated, but based on the Arts & Crafts design on the cover, printing fonts, and presence of vintage Schlitz and Budweiser beer ads, we can assume The Royal No. 10 Cook Book was published in the second decade of the 20th century, predating the Prohibition era.

Compliments of Standard Rice Company, Inc., Millers of Rice Since 1902

This promotional recipe booklet is a striking adverstisment for White House Cereals.  Most likely published in the late 1930's, the front cover is fashioned as a 3-D commercial food carton while the back cover displays their full product line.  Bright yellow and die-cut, this booklet was intended as an eye-catching calling card.  Die-cutting dates back to the Victorian era when industrial machines could mass-produce and print the same attractive shapes over and over again, like the celebrated Victorian-era Valentines.

Five Thousand Receipts in All the Useful and Domestic Arts

In an era before industrialization and mass-production, when every home has to make its own materials for daily life, this book of household recipes covers just about everything: as the lengthy title tells us, it ranges from the basics of cooking, preserving foods, and distilling, through practical matters such as medicines, tanning, horse-shoeing, and even metallurgy, to the finer arts of water-colors, oil painting, and enamelling.

What Shall I Cook Today?

"Do tell me how you get your French fried potatoes so crisp and dry?"  Shortening was invented by Proctor and Gamble (yes, the soap makers) in 1910 as an alternative to tallow.  In the 1930s, Spry began an advertising campaign that would rival Crisco for decades.  This Spry cookbook published around 1936 by another soapmaker, the Lever Brothers, uses the then new and trendy comic book motif to cleverly advertise their product.

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