Historical Cooking Books: – Our home cyclopedia. Cookery and housekeeping by Edgar S Darling (1889) – 12 in a series

Archive.org has a host of old cookery books (from mid-19th to mid-20th Century) available in many formats and on a host of topics. I happened across a few in my Pinterest feed and gone completely down the rabbit hole in this treasure trove of information. Sure some ideas might be out of date, but you never know what you might find when you explore these books. I’ll be sharing more books as I find them in the coming weeks. –Douglas


Historical Cooking Books: – Our home cyclopedia. Cookery and housekeeping by Edgar S Darling (1889) – 12 in a series

Historical Cooking Books: - Our home cyclopedia. Cookery and housekeeping by Edgar S Darling (1889) - 12 in a seriesHistorical Cooking Books: - Our home cyclopedia. Cookery and housekeeping by Edgar S Darling (1889) - 12 in a series

Ourhomecyclopedi00darl 0010Historical Cooking Books: - Our home cyclopedia. Cookery and housekeeping by Edgar S Darling (1889) - 12 in a series

PREFACE

We take pleasure in presenting a book to the public with an arrangement of subjects entirely different from any other published, and designed especially to save much valuable time to the housewife.

The subjects are so arranged that one has only to turn through the book, and from the headlines find each chapter in alphabetical order, making it easy to turn at once to any subject or recipe desired, without even turning to the table of contents.

The object of this book is to give housekeepers the most improved and scientific cookery as developed by the most practical schools of cookery of the present day; keeping in mind economy as far as consistent with well cooked and healthful dishes. Bad cooking is not only a waste of health but of money. This book, no doubt, will save many times its cost to each purchaser. The object being to assist the housekeeper in a practical way, the authors have not catered to the epicure, hence the highly seasoned and expensive dishes have been omitted.

Cook books previously published, have been confined to recipes only, while the general information which is so essential, has been omitted. We have taken a step forward, in giving at the commencement of each chapter, general directions that will apply to the recipes following.

To illustrate, take for instance chapter seven, “Canning Fruit.” Before giving any recipes, valuable instruction is given on those essential points, as preparing the cans, the tops, the rubbers, the kind of cans to be used, heating the fruit, and a complete table giving the quantity of sugar required per quart, and the time for boiling any kind of fruit. In the chapters on poultry, game, and marketing, full information is given on selecting meats of all kinds, where the best cuts of meat are to be found, the carving etc.

In the mechanical arrangement of this volume, the publishers have made it far excell any other cook book ever published.

The type is large and clear, the leaves are broad, and the book is so bound that it will remain open at any point desired, thus saving one’s time in frequent opening, as is the case with books of narrow pages.

The initial letters are entirely new features, and were designed and copyrighted especially for this book. The artist was instructed to represent each chapter in its initial letter. How well he has done so the reader can judge when looking through the book. So valuable and so cheap a book as this one should be owned and used (not borrowed) by every housekeeper.

If this book should be the means of bringing into the household, happiness, peace and contentment; if the husband hereafter sits at the table with a smiling and satisfied countenance, and the wife feels less of care and anxiety, then its mission will have been accomx^lished.

‘^Get a husband what he likes.

And save a thousand household strikes.”


 

Excellent Mead. Three pounds brown sugar, one pint of molasses, one-fourth pound tartaric acid; mix, pour over them two quarts boiling water, stir till dissolved. When cold, add half ounce essence sassafras and bottle. When you wish to drink it, put three tablespoonfuls of it in a tumbler, fill half full with ice water, add a little more than one-fourth teaspoonful soda. An excellent summer beverage.

 


Available in PDF, Text, JPG formats, and more

Publication date 1889
Publisher Detroit, Mich., The Mercantile publishing co.
Digitizing sponsor Sloan Foundation
Language English

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