lost & found cookbooks

French Cooking for the Home

"FRENCH COOKING FOR THE HOME" (AKA "French Cooking for Americans")
Louis Diat, 1956

Diat's first cookbook, "Sauces, French and Famous" is a work that is still considered a standard on the subject. A young and inspired chef for the Ritz Carlton in New York from the early 1900's through the 50's, Diat took a scientific approach to cooking, experimenting in his "laboratory" with foods from around the world.

Diat returns to his French roots with this robust personal cookbook "French Cooking for the Home" inspired by his mother's cooking.  The Bourbonnais recipes are lavish with milk, cream, butter, cheese, eggs and wine and complemented by lively stories of typical French cookery.

If you are a fan of Top Chef, you know that the most recent challenge was to cook elk for a passel of cowboys and cowgirls. Diat's chapter on "Furred Game" includes Hare and Rabbit, Wild Boar & Venison, and an elaborate two-page recipe for making a Terrine (Pate) of Hare.

This is the British printing of "French Cooking for Americans". Contents are the same, covers are different.

[see Carrot Soup recipe from this cookbook]

[buy it at OldCookbooks.com]

 

Winnie-the-Pooh Cookbook

"The Pooh Cook Book"
Virginia Ellison, 1965

This little cookbook is as heart warming and smile-making as the original Pooh stories that inspired it. Recipes are spoon-licking, tummy yummy. And while some recipes might require running outside to "catch a bowl of snow", most are simple and designed with a Pooh-like humminess.

Ellison captures the essence of Pooh with her recipes and corresponding Winnie-the-Pooh quotes, making this a magical book for children and an essay on simple comforts for adults. (If you are puddling around the house in a poofy bathrobe and bunny slippers you can whip up a Jelly Omelet or celebrate the day with a Honey Chocolate Pie.)

Adorable.

[buy it at OldCookbooks.com]

Cooking with Curry, Florence Brobeck, 1952

"COOKING WITH CURRY"
Florence Brobeck, 1952

This little cookbook bills itself as "the first book ever published on curry dishes here or abroad." Indeed, my research shows only one very obscure  cookbook that concentrates on curry dishes before this one -- an 1880's British rarity entitled "The Curry Cook's Assistant".

Brobeck allocates the first chapter to a basic history and composition of curry (which is not actually one spice, but a blend of as many as 50 ingredients) and discussing the finer points with several notable restaurant owners and chefs. 

A world traveler, Brobeck's many best-selling cookbooks reflect her love of aromatic and ethnic cooking. She wrote a popular weekly column for the New York Times and was a contributing food writer to major publications, including the New Yorker and Good Housekeeping. Her book "Old Time Pickling and Spicing Recipes" is the subject of an earlier post.

Whether you are starting a collection of cookbooks about spices, or trying to capture all of the cookbooks by Brobeck before they are rediscovered, this is one to add to your collection.

[buy it at OldCookbooks.com]