More Vintage Cookbooks

Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.

Harriet Van Horne

Here are some more of my favourite vintage cookbooks.

This one, the Australian Women's Weekly Cookbook, barely classes as vintage; it was first published in 1970. My mother owned this book when I was a child and I liked looking at it, so when I found a copy second-hand I bought it.

Being a 1970s book it has a chapter on fondues. I have noticed a recent resurgence in the popularity of fondue, though as a chocolate dessert, not a cheese course.

Funnily enough, the very first time I met my now husband's sister and her husband they served us chocolate fondue for dessert. I was a very nervous 20 year old and in attempting to feed my then boyfriend a piece of fondue-dipped fruit I speared his tongue with the fondue fork, causing it to bleed. So much for making a good first impression with the future in-laws!

Here are some canapes, 70s style. Notice the effort that must have gone into making each of these. Nowadays people mostly pick up their nibblies from a deli or supermarket.

These biscuits and slices look delicious. They are, from left to right, back row then front, butter oat biscuits, almond bread, butter coconut crisps, macaroons, Viennese biscuits, easy florentines, chocolate mint slices, and chocolate cherry bars.

The next cookbook came from my grandmother's house. It has no date but I think it must come from the late 40s or early 50s as it refers to the difficulty some may have getting eggs due to food shortages.


Look at the bacon in this photo. (You can double-click on any of these images to make them larger.) You don't see fat bacon like that anymore!

This book has groovy colour ads for the new convenience foods.

And even a magazine ad. Observe this model's cinched in waist. She mustn't have eaten any of the baked goods in this book (or the bacon!)


The final cookbook for today will be familiar to many American readers. My mother owned a 1968 copy of this cookbook because she and my father honeymooned in the US. My father discovered a taste for pecan pie which was then unknown in Australia, so he bought her this book to give her a recipe. I don't think she ever made him the pie, but I enjoyed reading this book as a child.

First published in 1940, it is a really thick tome of about 1000 pages and has recipes and instructions on just about everything, from how to cook braised moose or roast squirrels, to how to build a cold cellar.

I bought my 1959 edition from ebay; my one and only ebay transaction.

There are menus for all occasions,

and lists of all the gadgets needed to fill a 'modern' kitchen.

I hope you have enjoyed perusing my vintage cookbooks as much as I have sharing them. If you would like to share some of your own cookbooks I would be happy to link to you; just leave a comment.

Have a lovely weekend.

Kate xxx