[Sca-cooks] First cookbooks....

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Maire asked:
>  1.  What was the first cookbook you ever owned, all by yourself?

Like Huette, I had "The Betty Crocker Cook Book for Boys and Girls". 
And like Katira i also had the red-and-white checked "Better Homes 
and Gardens Junior Cookbook" in the three-ring binder. I don't know 
what ever happened to it. But i think i still have the Betty Crocker 
book somewhere. I don't recall which i got first.

I probably made one of those salads out of canned fruit that looks 
like a rabbit.

>  2.  What was the first cookbook you remember cooking from?

I really don't remember.

I was a terrible cook as a kid - even box mixes flopped in my hands. 
But when i began experimenting without recipes, i improved. We ate 
Uncle Ben's converted rice (stop sniggering!) and i began 
experimenting by adding different things in the water. My experiments 
were always successful - but i wasn't doing anything wacky. I would 
add V-8 as part of the liquid, or add a bouillon cube and some herbs.

My mom owned a few cookbooks. Her basic one was The Settlement House 
Cookbook, which sadly fell apart (and the pages disintegrated, too). 
I'm not sure when it was published (the book has a vastly long 
history in print, for an American book). She probably got it in the 
late 1940s after she got married. Maybe i cooked something from this 
but i doubt it.

She also had one cookbook for when guests came - she often did some 
of the specialty cooking in that case, when she didn't hire a 
caterer. It was the Antoinette Pope School Cookbook - i just found it 
on eBay - looks like my mom had the 1962 edition...

I also was terrible in Home Ec. classes (required for three years 
when i was in jr. high). I couldn't cook and i couldn't sew. When i 
dropped out of college and lived on my own, at first i was making 
exciting things like spaghetti or tuna salad.

Then i had my mind-blowing Indian food experience (which i think i've 
already described on this list), after which i bought a bunch of 
those late 1960s Doubleday hardcover ethnic cookbooks - i got Indian, 
Persian, Turkish, and Mexican. Heck, i still have them, although they 
are not entirely authentic :-) That's when i began cooking.

>  3.  What was the first period cookbook/food text you ever owned?

Well, i joined the SCA only 7 years ago, and i still don't remember. 
I rather dived in to cooking. I think my first was Redon, Sabban, and 
Serventi's "The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy".

As for most recent cookbooks:
Last week i ordered an early 17th c. Moghul cookbook from India, but 
it clearly won't get here for a while.
And this week i ordered Charles Perry's new translation of 
al-Baghdadi from Devra, who kindly listened to me babble over the 
phone, when she had just walked in exhausted from a grueling drive.
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita