Fascinating Old Cook Books

     My cook book collection includes a few vintage volumes and I recently acquired another at a local flea market. The American Woman's Cook Book immediately appealed to me since these old books are delightful not just for their recipes but because they read almost like a novel. The comments and descriptions differ as greatly from contemporary books as do the lives of women who use them. And in fact, if most cooks today, like me, use cook books less and less and internet recipe sites more and more, these tomes may become as obsolete as printed newspapers. I certainly hope this is not the case as I enjoy an occasional recipe search through a trusted book, which usually takes quite a bit longer than necessary because of the extra reading I do along the way. Following are three excerpts from my new book that I found amusing and a fourth from The Century Cook Book, another prized possession which has been on my shelf for several years.