More cookbooks from the vintage pile...

Buying old cookbooks is becoming a bit of an obsession of mine and I've talked about it before in my posts about Good Things in England, Vintage Cooking Heaven and 20 things I won't be cooking any time soon... I thought I'd share a few more of my recent purchases with you.

The first book I bought was Miss Tuxfords Cookery for the Middle Classes.  I was attracted to this purely because it said "middle classes" and it amused me. I never said I wasn't easily pleased! I believe Miss Hestor Tuxford wrote this book sometime around the 1930's and it has a particularly lovely section called "Invalid Cookery" including such delights as Beef Tea, Egg Jelly, Fish Custard and Mulled Milk.  I'm not entirely sure, you know, don't knock it until you've tried it and all that but I'm pretty sure if I was convalescing and recuperating a fish in custard form wouldn't be top of my list of treats. As if you're not ill enough? Imagine drinking Mulled Milk. Other sections of the book include delicacies like Jellied Rabbit, Rook Pie and Stewed Sweetbreads.   However there was some good in it and I was quite taken by the idea of Potato Balls - mashed potato, egg yolk and salt & pepper - breaded and fried. Yum. Not healthy but yum. I'm going to try those. There was also a few cakes and desserts that sounded worth a go.

Next up was The WI Book of Party Recipes from 1969 where it seems that to be considered chic nearly everything had to have a French name! Who couldn't resist some Dinde Magique, Jambon a la Suedois or Langue de Boeuf Braise aux Raisins. Was this a late 60's phenomenon - giving recipes a French name? How chichi!

The Times 1963 Cookery Book had several things I wanted to try like Irish Potato Bread, St Catherines Cakes and Banbury Apple Pie nestled amongst things I'd never want to eat let alone cook like Creamed Crawfish and Baked Eels. What was it with eels?! One thing I liked about this book was in the description for Chicken Tikka:

How fabulous does the "Bombay Emporium" section of a shop sound?

Kids Cooking: A Very Slightly Messy Manual is a kids cookbook published by Klutz in 1987. Not exactly vintage but might class as retro? It's 1987, it's nearly 20 years ago. I class that as OLD.  I saw this at a school fete and couldn't resist, I liked the nice fun layout of it. 

The recipes sound fun - what child could resist Buried Treasure Muffins or Darrells' Forget-the-Cookies-Just-Give-Me-That-Batter Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe or even a Frozen Bananoid? The idea, apart from being full of fun sounding recipes is that children use this book to cook themselves so it's very simple. I love it!

The Hampshire Federation of Women's Institute published this "Can she cook...?" book in 1968. I'm hoping it's a rhetorical question.  The book was one the author decided to write for her daughter on her marriage - so that she was armed with recipes and ideas for "the sort of entertaining young married people want to do nowadays". Ah bless. It's pretty standard fair but I get the feeling avocados were quite a novelty as they are constantly referred to as "avacado" which annoys me no end.  Wonder if Juliet Wier found the book useful back in the 60's/70's. 

My personal favourite out of the crop was the Good Housekeeping's Picture Cake Making from 1952. This book has some great old favourites in along with some less known recipes and reminds me of I book my mother used to have before my father when on some mass-decluttering spree. It's probably the most usable of my vintage cookbooks (you can always rely on Good Housekeeping!) and has some good recipes for traditional cakes like Swiss Roll, Rock Cakes, Macaroons, Cherry Loaf and Gingerbread. I actually think I will use this one a lot!

I can't resist an old tattered cookbook that needs a new home. I think they're a great insight into times gone by. Anyone else have a penchant for old books?