Reading older cookbooks

I have a pretty large collection of cookbooks. Some of them I rarely cook from, some of them I just use for a single recipe. (I suppose the anti-clutter advocates would tell me to hand copy that recipe and dump the book).

I like looking at them, though, even if I rarely cook from most of them (There really are, I think, about five cookbooks I have, that I use regularly - Jane Doerfer's "Going Solo in the Kitchen" is one, The Settlement Cook Book is another, "Help, My Apartment has a Kitchen" (as much of a basic bachelor-feed-thyself book as that is, it does have some good small-quantity recipes).

I was looking at the "Williamsburg Cookbook" last night. (This is one of the cookbooks my mother owns a copy of, and when I found one in a used book store - for $3, no less - I decided I wanted my own).

One thing that strikes me about cookbooks from the 60s, 70s, and modern cookbooks: the differences in the style of photography. Some of the 60s era cookbooks I own (a number of the Farm Journal cookbooks, and also the Betty Crocker "Cooking for Two" and "Good and Easy" cookbooks) tend to have very bright pictures (almost lurid colors, in some of them) of the food on a plate in some kind of place-setting. (A lot of times the place setting is "themed" - fishing nets draped on the table for a fish dish, bright colors and juvenile dishes for something for a child's birthday party). The focus is on the food but the place settings and background are there. (It's actually kind of interesting, from a semi-historical standpoint: did people really have that bright of decorations in their houses?).

In the 1970s era books, the Americana theme seems to be pretty prevalent (my own family, when I was growing up, had sort of Americana decor. I think it was a Bicentennial-consciousness thing, though, as I remember, the Americana trend started before the Bicentennial). I have an old Joys of Jell-o book that has some pretty spectacular examples. Much larger motifs and much brighter colors than what we had as decor, but a similar feel. (I find it oddly comforting to look at that book; I can remember how the house I grew up in used to be decorated, with the blue-and-white mock-Delft-tile wallpaper in the kitchen, and the paneled family room...). Also, a difference in the 1970s cookbooks I own: there are people in the photographs. In the earlier cookbooks with photos, the photos are close-ups of the food. In the 1970s books - the aforementioned Jell-o book, and also the Williamsburg book - there are people. In the Jell-o book, it is mainly "family" pictures, of them sitting around a table, grinning at the jell-o dessert they are about to eat. Or a couple dressed in the height of 1970s chic arriving at the front door of a house for a potluck, with a gelatin salad in tow. The Williamsburg book's photos mainly feature the costumed docents (or re-enactors, or whatever you want to call them), but a few photos - I think from the more-modern "Motor Lodge" (I was to Williamsburg only once in my life, and then only for a couple days, but I remember the Motor Lodge). Anyway, the photo is ostensibly of a New Year's Eve party, and the women are in maxidresses.

Heh. Maxidresses. I just BARELY remember that phase (and was not old enough to wear one, myself). It's funny how a certain thing can take you back; those women in maxidresses made me think of the "entertaining" (dinner parties, more or less) that my parents used to do when I was a kid...how my brother and I were allowed to "meet" the guests but then sent up to bed while they were having dinner (we had, of course, eaten our own dinners in the kitchen much earlier).

And again: that's one of the images I got of adulthood as a child, that sort of stuck with me. That you "entertained" by having people over for dinner. I've never actually done that (unless you count the time I bought barbecue for all the people who helped me move into my house). I think it's one of the things that makes me wonder in the back of my head if I'm really a "proper" grown-up; there are so many things my parents did as "grown ups" in the 1970s that I don't do - but some of them are things that few people seem to do any more (Do people still DO dinner parties? I mean, real formal ones with the "good china" and a carefully planned menu and all of that? Part of the whole "entertaining" thing, I think, was probably that my father was a low-level college admin in those days (Coordinator of Research) and it was probably kind of "expected")

Still, I think if my circumstances were different (bigger dining room, more free time, actually owning "good china") it might be fun. I know for a while my brother and sister in law were part of a "dinner group" that rotated between different people's houses, but it was a lot more casual and the meals were things like spaghetti or make-your-own sandwiches.

I don't know. It's fun, though, to look at the cookbooks and think about how things used to be done, and about some kind of alternate-universe version where maybe I WOULD be hosting dinner parties (though it's probably a lot easier with a spouse to set the table and wash the salad while you work on the main dish).

Incidentally, the Willamsburg cookbook is still in print

And the contemporary cookbooks, the photography is back focusing on the food - but in a lot of the ones I've seen, it's very minimal; the food is on a white background or very plain dishes. Rather than setting up some fantasy of serving a 'themed' meal to the family or something, it seems like the food is the ONLY important thing - like it is food portraiture, rather than helpful photos to inspire "serving suggestions" (as they say on the boxes of food in the store). Food "cheesecake shots"? (I will not use the term "porn" in conjunction with food; it seems that our society is all too good at giving moral value to food, which is morally neutral. And usually the moral value is given in such a way that the food is seen as "bad," somehow. Or "virtuous," but that's often reserved for food that is very much in its state-of-nature - and you don't need a cookbook to deal with raw broccoli.)

(Edited to add: the irony is not lost on me that I happen to be posting about cooking, cookbooks, and entertaining - all traditionally "women's" domain - on International Women's Day. What can I say? I don't think there's ANYTHING wrong with cooking or entertaining if you enjoy it. I love to cook, myself, and it frustrates me when I - occasionally, still - hear people go on about how it's somehow antifeminist to enjoy domestic things. What I would argue is antifeminist is telling other women how they should live their lives, whether that's telling them not to work outside the home or telling them not to enjoy nurturing themselves and others...)