The Household Searchlight Recipe Book (1939)
The Friends of the Library sale comes through again. Usually, I only search these sales for old adventure, pulp and science-fiction/fantasy paperbacks for to be scanned and placed into my digital book cover collection. My criteria is usually either particularly good graphic design and typography or particularly insane illustrations.
This cookbook falls into the graphic design and typography arena, to be sure, even though it’s out of my usual ouvre, but please also be aware that the title and illustration plate are bas-relief.
The book is tabbed, crammed with recipes (8 to 10 per page) and for things I’ve never heard of nor imagined, like Vinegar Taffy, Rice Brittle and Goldenrod Eggs (egg whites in a white sauce with sieved egg yolk and paprika). Guys, I think this cookbook may be haunted.
Something of an amateur chef, I’ve been adrift over the last couple of years with nothing to inspire my focus in the kitchen. I think I’ve just found it. I definitely plan to make the spice cake and meatloaf from the recipes which are handwritten in the back of the book …
GORGEOUS. I love (and collect) old household and cooking books and they’re why I love to cook and enjoy cleaning and solving household problems. They also tend to be beautifully of the era they’re from, with whatever hot new food item being central to way more recipes than you’d want or expect (like instant coffee in recipes from the 1970s).
