lost & found cookbooks

Dining With My Friends

"DINING WITH MY FRIENDS"
Crosby Gaige
1949

Every now and then, I come across a cookbook like this one --  monumentally charming yet overlooked by collectors. Crosby Gaige, a broadway producer and later cookbook writer, created this cookbook by asking his hosts for the menus and recipes. The letters and notes received, along with Gaige's introductions and discourse, make up a unique collection and offer an engrossing look at 1940's American culture.

Each of the the 125 dinners is throughly described, recounting entire meals and menus complete with recipes. The commentary sparkles with good cheer and paints an appealing portrait of the sophisticated gastronomical repast enjoyed by Gaige and a cadre of the author's friends and acquaintances: tycoons, homemakers, bankers, illustrators, some famous some not, take their place next to iconic chefs and cookbook writers.

Just a few of the notable friends: Merle Armitage, Andre Simon, Dione Lucas, Raymond Loewy, Dorothy Kirk and Louis Bromfield. If you are unfamiliar with some of these potent notables, you won't be by the time you finish the book as each entry includes a short biography.

Love it.

[buy it at OldCookbooks.com]

Tante Marie's French Pastry

"TANTE MARIE'S FRENCH PASTRY"
1954

This petite 1950's pastry book has me convinced that in a previous life I was a pleasingly plump French pastry chef. It is an illustrative guide originally by Tante Marie ("Aunt Marie") and translated from the French by Charlotte Turgeon. Tante Marie's cornerstone cookbook, "La Veritable Cuisine de Famille" has been a staple in French homes since 1903. The helpful folks at www.foodtimeline.org tell me there really was no "Tante Marie" -- the name was fabricated by the author/publisher to make her cookbooks sound more "homey". The recipes (some of which are likely centuries old) were actually collected from convents and monasteries.

Includes French pastries and petits fours, basic doughs and fillings, tarts, sweet cakes and special occasion cakes. Here is a sample recipe for a hard-boiled egg cake.

See also:

[Tante Marie's French Kitchen]

[Tante Marie's La Veritable Cuisine de Famile]

[buy Tante Marie's French Pastry at OldCookbooks.com]

Sunset Barbecue Cookbook

"SUNSET BARBECUE BOOK"
1946-1948

To say that my husband likes to barbecue is like saying the himalayas are tall. A running family joke shows his devotion: somewhere around February, when the snow has settled at 2 feet deep, he'll say. "Well, looks like the last day of the barbecue season."  He will barbecue in the rain, sleet, hail, snow and dead of night.

Barbecue cookbooks by Sunset (Lane Publishing) are desirable for their appealing graphics as well as the excellent recipes. Shown left is one of several versions which also contain ideas and plans for actual barbecues. Recipes are creative and fun and run the gamut from barbecued oysters to barbecued caramel apples. The plans are thorough, with helpful information on siting, building and using barbecues, with over 20 different plans.

It is difficult to find ANY cookbooks that focus specifically on barbecuing prior to the 1930's and the Sunset Barbecue Book with the wooden cover circa 1938 remains a favorite of collectors. The successive Sunset Barbecue cookbooks were printed with a variety of covers. The 1946 version (shown here with a dust jacket) has a cover printed to simulate wood. The original wood covers must have been very acidic, as the pages that touch the cover tend to be very brown and brittle. But these cookbooks are desirable in just about any condition. You can help retard the deterioration by inserting a neutral ph paper between the wood and the paper.

[other old barbecue cookbooks]

[buy the SUNSET BARBECUE BOOK, 1946]

[buy the SUNSET BARBECUE BOOK, 1938]