I have several hundred-year-old church cookbooks. All of them contain favorite recipes of individuals affiliated with the church publishing the cookbook. These cookbooks were also created for fund-raising purposes. The published cookbooks were sold. They also all have advertising sections at the back. Then (as well as now), selling ads to local businesses increased the profits. A 1925 cookbook compiled by the Sisters of St. Joseph in St. Paul, Minnesota has a page in the book right before the advertisements calling attention to the ads. And, here’s one of the pages which contained ads:
The Sisters probably solicited ads from members of the church who owned businesses or from vendors who sold products to the church.
I have quite a stash of community cookbooks from different parts of the country and from different decades. I love how they are all the same in some ways and different in others.
The recipies that “every” book has and the ones that are specific to that area and time.
Similarly to you, I love how each community cookbook provide lots of clues about the food history and characteristics of the community that compiled it.
This is so cool! Those old church cookbooks must be such a treasure trove of history and recipes. I love the idea of combining fundraising with local ads, it’s like a glimpse into the past economy. , I wish I had one of those cookbooks to flip through right now!
When I was doing research on some towns in Mississippi, I found local publications like this helpful in getting an idea of the businesses in the area.
You’re absolutely right. The advertisements provide so much information about the businesses in the area. None of the advertisements I posted contain phone numbers, but some of the other pages in the book contained ads with phone numbers. I found it interesting how the phone numbers often only had a few digits. Apparently relatively few individuals and merchants had phones back then.
That is a lot of cookbooks. I guess you will never run out of recipes to try.
There are a lot of cookbooks, but I try to just use cookbooks from exactly 100 years ago so that limits things a little. (This year I’m using 1925 cookbooks that I bought on eBay.) Each year, as it gets near the end of the year, I look forward to getting a group of “new” cookbooks for the next year.
Church cookbooks are the best – you are supporting a ministry, one delectable recipe at a time!
I love how you phased it. Church cookbooks are the best.
I used to collect them – the church cookbooks! Now I’m down to about 3. You are right about the local advertisers!