An Encyclopedia of Cooking

Last year on a summer afternoon we wandered up the block to a moving sale. It was an elderly couple getting ready to downsize and move closer to their kids. My vintage antennae were twitching and I convinced my husband to come along. I’ve learned it’s wise to take him with me on these expeditions, otherwise we’d have a house full of things we don’t need, don’t have room for, but I just couldn’t pass up. He gets a subtle look I’ve learned to read as, “Are you kidding??!!!”.

There were lots of old cookbooks, boxes of them tucked in a corner of the garage. I picked out a couple for a grand total of $2.50 and headed home to flip through them. The first, and biggest, book is The Encyclopedia of Cooking, by Mary Margaret McBride, first published in 1959. It’s full of recipes from another era, some that I’ll try, others, um, not. The other book is hilarious and worthy of an entire post of its own next week. (How’s that for a stay-tuned tease?)

The Encyclopedia of Cooking is over 1,500 pages long, a hefty book of recipes straight from the 1950’s and 1960’s. The recipes range from cookies that look good even in black & white, to gelatin salads (yuck), to frankfurter casseroles I don’t even want to imagine. There’s even a canning section that, though out-dated, is fun to read through.  I’ve definitely gotten my money’s worth out of this book, and a bit more.