My Favorite Find Today

What a wonderful afternoon at the Salvation Army. I snapped up this vintage Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook (Chicago) for $4. This 974 page book was published in 1950 and the first chapter is called, 'Your 2000 facts about food.' Here is an excerpt from the introduction:

'The personality of a cookbook is as apparent as it is important. It is composed of known and stable ingredients with unknown and elusive ones to make a mixture as familiar, friendly and exhilarating as a pine woods on a summer morn. The elusive charm of this personality stems from a clear overtone: a light touch- a sense of humor - a flair for the clever idea of cooking and serving that results in something called style, but above all a feeling for the kind of beauty that women want about them in their work-a-day world.'

Lara at Cook and Eat would have a hay-day with this book. The best part was finding a typewritten recipe inside the worn pages. You know, I could do an entire blog for 5 years based on this literary treasure. Hmmm...and someone obviously thought it was rubbish.