For foodies, historical cookbooks can be a treasure to thumb through beyond measure, as we plainly see the kinds of foods and the methods of preparing them that were popular in days gone by. Here in New Orleans, this is particularly intriguing, as we have a rich culinary history here. As much as we treasure old books such as this, so many published and unpublished cookbooks were lost to Katrina’s floodwaters, along with many other local treasures. This loss is painful beyond words, for the families that lost their heirlooms, as well as society at large. To discover an online location with PDF versions of some historical cookbooks is a real treat, but there is just such a source.
The Historic American Cookbook Project has digital reproductions of these cookbooks, and access is free. In this day and age, with the trends towards paid subscriptions for access, that alone is a minor miracle. To discover that they had La Cuisine Creole: A Collection of Culinary Recipes, From Leading Chefs and Noted Creole Housewives, Who Have Made New Orleans Famous for its Cuisine.
By Lafcadio Hearn c. 1885 available is enough to snatch away the breath of the foodie with history buff tendencies. For a New Orleanian foodie, this is a treasure beyond words.
It’s a huge file, just over 57 MB in PDF format and it doesn’t download instantly, but to be able to look at the pages of a book from days gone by is simply amazing. It’s a case of being able to step back in history and look at many dishes closer to their origin and perhaps reconnect with the culinary roots of a great cuisine.
Also available from this website is Cooking In Old Créole Days. La Cuisine Créole À L'Usage Des Petits Ménages. By Célestine Eustis, with an introduction by S. Weir Mitchell... c. 1904. Once again, we can venture back to days gone by, exploring how New Orleans recipes were written just over a century ago, when our great-great and great grandparents were the ones doing the cooking. Cooking in Old Creole Days is a much smaller file, downloading in a tenth of the time it took for La Cuisine Creole.
It amused me that the very first recipe in Cooking in Old Creole Days included directions on making a roux, especially since even today, being able to make a roux is the first step to learning to cook well. In La Cuisine Creole, the first paragraphs are about soup, telling the reader “Soup being the first course served at all ordinary dinners, we make it the basis for preliminary remarks. Nothing more palatable than good, well made soup and nothing less appetizing than poor soup.” That statement is so true, even today!
If you love New Orleans food, and find old cookbooks and the culinary history hidden within, you’ll surely want to download and explore these books, as well as others available through the Historic American Cookbook Project. These books are truly a national treasure and to have them available digitally to everyone is wonderful.
Here are easy directions for downloading and saving these files to your computer. Click on the book title above, which will take you to the page for that cookbook. A short distance down the page, you will see an option “view pdf.” Right click on this and you should get a menu with an option called “save link as.” Highlight and click this option, then save the file with a title and location that you can find and will remember. The default titles are rather ambiguous, so it is a good idea to replace that title with the short version of the book title. When the file has downloaded, it will open in Adobe Reader, which is available free. You are then set for hours of happy reading of a book that is nearly impossible to find a copy of.
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