Every year there are hundreds of new cookbooks written, yet some of the freshest, liveliest food writing can be found in books written decades (or even centuries) ago. These vintage works capture a particular time and place and deliver a (literal) taste of the past.
This kitchen staple written by the English author Hannah Glasse in 1747 remained a bestseller in North America and Europe for more than a century. Take a trip back in time to learn how to boil, fry, roast and make sauces, hashes, ragouts, and fricassées and all the necessary cooking skills in between, with recipes that remain accessible today.
By Rufus Estes
First published in 1911, Rufus Estes' Good Things to Eat is considered to be one of the first cookbooks ever written by a Black chef. Estes was born a slave, freed after the Civil War and in adulthood became a notable chef in Chicago. While working for Pullman Company railcar line he fed many of the most famous and influential people of the time. His cookbook features French recipes along with some of Estes' favorites from growing up in the South.
Acclaimed food critic Alice B. Toklas composed much of this kitchen-themed memoir, which raised eyebrows for a hashish fudge recipe, while ridden with hepatitis. In it, she remembers a beloved childhood cook via fritters, while a meal with Picasso is recalled through a bass dish, yoking recipes to major players in her eventful life.
Honey From a Weed is less a cookbook than a personal recollection told through distinct food memories. Legendary author Patience Gray champions self-sufficiency and doing more with less. Her nomadic, rural life story packs in more than just traditional recipes, and you’ll be left with a changed understanding of the way we eat.
The 850 recipes in Farm Journal’s Country Cookbook, collected from cooks all across the nation, are a collection of America’s best. Author Nell Beaubien Nichols was a prolific food writer and chronicler of American foodways, with no fewer than 17 cookbooks to her name, written over a period of more than 50 years. She is best known for the series of books written for the magazine Farm Journal.
Prue Leith, a presenter of The Great British Bake Off, has partnered with her niece, Peta Leith, a professional pastry chef, to write The Vegetarian Kitchen. Kerstin Rodgers interviewed the pair over Zoom about their collaboration, how they handled lockdown, friendship with food-writing legends Mary Berry and Elizabeth David, and what life is really like in the Bake Off tent.
Cooking fish is easier than you might think, says supper club host and author Kerstin Rodgers, aka Ms Marmite Lover. Here she gives some simple tips for cooking fish and shares her top fishy finds on ckbk.