Learn New Old Recipes From This Free Collection of 12,000 Vintage Cookbooks
Today, cookbooks are a dime a dozen, and every celebrity chef — and celebrity-turned-home chef — releases his own (usually accompanied by a line of kitchen products). But we need to go back a generation or two to get to a time when cookbooks played an indispensable role in most American families—not just for display in the kitchen, but for regular (if not daily) use.
Regardless of why or when they were written, cookbooks provide an interesting glimpse into the past, including when certain foods became available in different regions, regional cuisine disappeared, and what was eaten on special occasions.
Luckily, you don’t have to travel across the country to find the vast array of cookbooks used throughout post-colonial American history. There is a free (and growing) online archive of about 12,300 American cookbooks and other home economics texts. Here’s what you need to know.
How to Access the Free Online Collection of Vintage Cookbooks
Longtime readers of Lifehacker know how much we love the Internet Archive . Whether you’re looking for web pages that do n’t exist anymore , want to watch VHS recordings of your favorite TV shows and commercials from the 1990s, or play long-abandoned versions of PC games, this online tool comes in handy in many ways and serves as a gateway to countless exploratory bunnies. burrows.
Although the Internet Archive ‘s Cookbook and Home Economics Collection has been in existence since 2007, it has grown significantly in recent years, from about 3,000 volumes in 2016 to 12,297 volumes at the time of this writing.
As you can imagine, most of the cookbooks in the archive – and in general – were written for home cooks, who until relatively recently were almost exclusively women. In fact, from around the mid-1800s, it became common to give cookbooks and household manuals (which were often the same) to young brides to help them furnish their own home.
In addition to cookbooks and housekeeping guides, you’ll also find several books (and their covers) that are badly dated, many of which introduce white Americans to regional or international cuisine, often with racist, xenophobic, class, and cultural overtones. stereotypes for it.
You’ll also find all the usual suspects – Fanny Farmer , Betty Crocker (who is a fictional character , by the way) and Better Homes and Gardens experts – and their classic recipes.