Family cookbooks are books which contain a variety of recipes collected by specific families. Whilst these cookbooks are sometimes later published, the concept is of a commonplace book where useful recipes are retained and passed on to later generations. [1]
The recipes can be developed by the family or collated from other sources – and may be so familiar to the family that the origin is forgotten or not acknowledged. [1]
Whilst the primary function of a family cookbook is as a scrapbook to collect recipes for various types of meals and cooking techniques, an important function is also to provide context and promote familial memory. [2]
Scholars use these kinds of collected manuscripts to give insights into family history in the era when they were written, such as about gender roles, household environments, and women's emancipation. [3]
A recipe is a set of instructions that describes how to prepare or make something, especially a dish of prepared food. A sub-recipe or subrecipe is a recipe for an ingredient that will be called for in the instructions for the main recipe.
The Forme of Cury is an extensive 14th-century collection of medieval English recipes. Although the original manuscript is lost, the text appears in nine manuscripts, the most famous in the form of a scroll with a headnote citing it as the work of "the chief Master Cooks of King Richard II". The name The Forme of Cury is generally used for the family of recipes rather than any single manuscript text. It is among the oldest extant English cookery books, and the earliest known to mention olive oil, gourds, and spices such as mace and cloves.
A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes.
The Anarchist Cookbook, first published in 1971, is a book containing instructions for the manufacture of explosives, rudimentary telecommunications phreaking devices, and related weapons, as well as instructions for the home manufacture of illicit drugs, including LSD. It was written by William Powell at the apex of the counterculture era to protest against United States's involvement in the Vietnam War. Powell converted to Anglicanism in 1976 and later attempted to have the book removed from circulation. However, the copyright belonged to the publisher, who continued circulation until the company was acquired in 1991. Its legality has been questioned in several jurisdictions.
Apicius, also known as De re culinaria or De re coquinaria is a collection of Roman cookery recipes, which may have been compiled in the fifth century CE, or possibly earlier. Its language is in many ways closer to Vulgar than to Classical Latin, with later recipes using Vulgar Latin added to earlier recipes using Classical Latin.
Commonplace books are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such books are similar to scrapbooks filled with items of many kinds: notes, proverbs, adages, aphorisms, maxims, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, prayers, legal formulas, and recipes.
The National Council of Negro Women, Inc. (NCNW) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1935 with the mission to advance the opportunities and the quality of life for African-American women, their families, and communities. Mary McLeod Bethune, the founder of NCNW, wanted to encourage the participation of Negro women in civic, political, economic and educational activities and institutions. The organization was considered as a clearing house for the dissemination of activities concerning women but wanted to work alongside a group that supported civil rights rather than go to actual protests. Women on the council fought more towards political and economic successes of black women to uplift them in society. NCNW fulfills this mission through research, advocacy, national and community-based services, and programs in the United States and Africa.
Mock turtle soup is an English soup that was created in the mid-18th century as an imitation of green turtle soup. It often uses brains and organ meats such as calf's head to duplicate the texture and flavour of the original's turtle meat after the green turtles used to make the original dish were hunted nearly to extinction. In the United States, mock turtle soup eventually became more popular than the original dish and is still popular in Cincinnati. The soup is also a traditional dish in the Lower Saxony areas of Germany, where it is considered a specialty of English cuisine.
Ruth Reichl, is an American chef, food writer and editor. In addition to two decades as a food critic, mainly spent at the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, Reichl has also written cookbooks, memoirs and a novel, and been co-producer of PBS's Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie, culinary editor for the Modern Library, host of PBS's Gourmet's Adventures With Ruth, and editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. She has won six James Beard Foundation Awards.
Pumpkin pie is a dessert pie with a spiced, pumpkin-based custard filling. The pumpkin and pumpkin pie are both a symbol of harvest time, and pumpkin pie is generally eaten during the fall and early winter. In the United States and Canada it is usually prepared for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other occasions when pumpkin is in season.
The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food is a Russian cookbook written by scientists from the Institute of Nutrition of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR. The cookbook was first published in 1939, and a further edition was published in 1952. An English translation appeared in 2012.
Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book is a 1986 book by Hilary Spurling containing and describing the recipes in a book inscribed by Elinor Fettiplace with the date 1604 and compiled in her lifetime: the manuscript contains additions and marginal notes in several hands. Spurling is the wife of a descendant of Fettiplace who had inherited the manuscript. The book provides a direct view of Elizabethan era cookery in an aristocratic country house, with Fettiplace's notes on household management.
What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking is a cookbook written in 1881 by former slave Abby Fisher, who had moved from Mobile, Alabama, to San Francisco. It was believed to be the first cookbook written by an African-American, before Malinda Russell's Domestic Cook Book: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen (1866) was rediscovered.
Compendium ferculorum, albo Zebranie potraw is a cookbook by Stanisław Czerniecki. First put in print in 1682, it is the earliest known cookery book published originally in Polish. Czerniecki wrote it in his capacity as head chef at the court of the house of Lubomirski and dedicated it to Princess Helena Tekla Lubomirska. The book contains more than 300 recipes, divided into three chapters of about 100 recipes each.
Reem Kassis is a Palestinian Israeli writer and cookbook author. Her work focuses on the intersection of food with culture, history and politics.
Cremation volumes are a genre of printed literature found in Thailand. They are commemorative books given as gifts to guests at Thai funerals, and usually include a biography of the deceased as well as other literary material. Their publication, which dates to the late nineteenth century, was initiated among royalty and nobility, then taken up by wealthy commoners and, later, the wider middle class. These books, whose contents range from compilations of religious texts and historical manuscripts to essays and writings on general knowledge in various fields, are regarded as a valuable historical source by Thai studies scholars, and are actively collected and traded.
Joudie Kalla is a Palestinian-British chef and food writer. She is the author of two prizewinning cookbooks, Palestine on a Plate: Memories from My Mother’s Kitchen (2016), and Baladi: A Celebration of Food from Land and Sea (2018), and has featured in venues like The New York Times,The Guardian, and Al Jazeera.
Sri Owen is an Indonesian cooking teacher and food writer, based in London for most of her life. She is the author of the first English-language recipe book dedicated to the food of Indonesia, and is recognised as a leading authority on Indonesian cuisine.
Tracey Medeiros is an American chef and cookbook author. She wrote The Art of Cooking with Cannabis as well as several cookbooks that collect recipes from farmers and local businesses in Vermont, and co-authored a similar collection from Connecticut.
Ibn Razīn al-Tujībī was a 13th-century Muslim-Andalucían scholar who wrote "one of only two cookbooks to survive" from that era.