Cookbook finds at Printer's Row

A couple were fairly mundane: Cheap copies of The Cake Doctor and The Bisquick Cookbook, both picked up primarily for use by the Boy Scout troop.

There was a beaut of a book called Thai Food by David Thompson that I still couldn't pay $22 for a $40 book that I might use just once in a while, and it turns out we found it for $12 used online.

But the cool ones:
Electric Refrigerator RECIPES and Menus Specially Prepared for the General Electric Refrigerator -- 1928, color plates, lots of desserts, and hilarious text: One chapter is titled "Frozen Delicacies to Tempt the invalid"

ERRaMSPftGER wrote:In cases of sickness cold things are often more welcome tha other kinds of food. Almost any liquid can be partially frozen in the General Electric Refrigerator before being served. One-third cup beef juice will freeze to a mush in 5 minutes....

Recipes include Frappéd Bouillon, Frozen Lobster Salad, Plain and Fancy Ice Blocks, Frozen Cheese -- I just have to quote this one -- this has to have fallen into the public domain by now!

ERRaMSPftGER wrote:Grate
1/4 pound (1 cup) American cheese, add
1 cream cheese and
1 cup mayonnaise dressing and beat thoroughly. Fold in
6 maraschino cherries, chopped fine,
6 green mint cherries, chopped fine, and [ed note: eeeewwwww]
1/2 pint crem beaten stiff. Freeze like Desserts and Salads That Need No Stirring, page 45. Remove to serving dish and sprinkle with
1/2 cup chopped nuts or
with paprika

The other book is the Ryzon Baking Book, from Ryzon Baking Powder, Copyright 1917. Again, lots of color photos. Great find.

I saw that same $22 copy. -thought it was a pretty good price for it.

Thai Food is worth having for its entirety not simply the recipes(which are excellent btw).

otherwise...I thought the bookfair had an off year. They can be rather hit or miss.

...too many vanity presses(read: not "small" presses...I have no beef with those)...too many(more than usual) wacko "revolutionary" stalls...way, way too much Ludlum/Patterson dreck.

I overheard one bookseller opine that the stuff they brought to fair was stuff they couldn't "get rid of" online: having said that I found a Robbe-Grillet I'd been searching for at said crappy kiosk. They didn't know what they had.

Since we are on the topic of books ... Brandeis book sale begins this coming weekend. I understand it is also their last, so they request people do not bring books to the sale.

Newberry Library's book sale is at the end of July. A friend prices the cookbooks advises she's seen many interesting old (her definition of old is 19th century and older) cookbooks coming through.

Regards,

Now...the Newberry Sale is always great.

I had a great afternoon in the Good Eating Tent (hosted by the hearty boys) at the Printers Row book fair and saw Bill Buford read from his new book about staging with Mario Batali and becoming a serious restaurant chef. Didn't really look for many new/used cookbooks though. There was also a number of people from the Calphalon cooking school and I saw the streets & sans guy and Alpana singh signing books (not together, but nearby). There's always a fair amount of foodie content at this book fair. I was a little disappointed that there were no trivia give-aways in the food tent when I was there. The last time I went I ended up with a $50.00 gift card for Sweets & Savories.

ooh- the 1928 refrigerator book- I have that one! At least I think I still do, it's in a box.. or maybe it got sold to Myopic! and now you have it!

Anyhow, it's really beautiful, with gorgeous illustrations of 1920's ladies being all hostessy. I really love cookbooks from the period when the middle class was just learning to cook because they couldn't afford "help" anymore, and cookbooks that embrace "new" technology (refrigerators, microwaves...)