Cooking for generations
Held in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library are a number of fascinating and important collections, some yet to be studied. One collection in particular is over 100 years old, holding secrets to American culture and even to individuals themselves. Have you guessed what this collection could contain? They’re cookbooks! English major and Undergraduate Research Library Fellowship student, Elizabeth Holup, is researching previously unstudied cookbook manuscripts from 1890 to 1950, in both physical and digital formats.
With so many texts unstudied, Holup has her work cut out for her, but she is more than up for the task. She theorizes as to why such important documents have gone untouched for over 100 years: “Academia is only now starting to expand its definition of what constitutes ‘academically worthy literature.’ Manuscript cookbooks – cookbooks written by hand – are somewhat of an odd form of writing: they don’t have a traditional ‘narrative’ in terms of plot, and they’re overwhelmingly written by women (note that this isn’t always true for published cookbooks, which have male authors more often).” Holup explains the drive to uncover these materials: “Just as the last few decades have seen a huge increase in welcoming marginalized voices into academia, scholars are starting to see domestic writing (which comes from ordinary women of all classes and races) as valuable sources for study. I’m proud and honored to be part of this increase and to uncover a part of these ordinary women’s stories and lives!”
Holup was destined for this research. She recalls her roots in the Girl Scouts, saying, “All of my large-scale projects (like my Silver and Gold Awards) featured food in some form or another.” One large scale project, Holup recalls, was called “West Park Chefs.” She created a cooking club for her church and surrounding community to bring people together. “We provided the ingredients and recipes, and then mixed everyone up into multi-generational groups so that people could get to know each other better and bond over creating a dish.” Holup values eating meals together because it connects people, and so it was only natural to express these values by studying how meals are crafted – both through cooking and sharing recipes.
These cookbooks and recipes collected in the RBML reveal much more about the time period and authors than appears to the naked eye. Specifically, Holup is “looking to catalog trends in food – for example, what recipes are plentiful in each decade, and how the greater cultural context like the Great Depression or WWII may have informed that – and also to uncover what I can about the personal histories of the authors.” Upon further investigation, Holup discovered that the manuscripts she is studying offer much more than just recipes; they represent what families ate, how the dishes were served, and they even contain information about the author! Holup describes one manuscript by a woman named Barbara H. Woording: “Her book contains instructions for dishes, of course, but also notes on when they were served, if her family enjoyed them and culinary suggestions for the next time she cooks them. There's even a section in the back where Barbara has kept a list of every time her son, Billy, misbehaves!”
While one might be wary of trying a recipe called “Pineapple and Ginger Cracker Pie,” Holup is dedicated to bringing these manuscripts “back to life.” She is interested in representing how these recipes are relevant to modern life. In doing so, she will be testing recipes from the cookbooks in a modern kitchen, with emphasis on the ones that were special to the authors or “just plain bizarre.” Who knows, since most trends are cyclical, perhaps we will see a resurgence in early 1900s recipes.
In the process of testing these recipes, Holup aims to stick to the written instructions in each recipe, though sometimes she is faced with surprising challenges. “Cooks didn’t always record standard temperatures or measurements (for example, butter was often described as being ‘the size of an egg’ instead of a certain number of tablespoons) when these books were written,” she explains. While measurements and instructions were modernizing, so were cooking utensils and tools. Cooking in a twenty-first century kitchen will pose some authenticity challenges, but Holup is still focused on recreating the recipe as true to the original, knowing that it will probably have some slight differences.
Digitized recipes are convenient, but hard copy cookbooks are more tangible. Holup says, “There’s room for both!” After working with both physical and digital manuscripts, Holup reflects on the advantages of each: “the digitized cookbooks I’ve examined are easily accessible to anyone in any place at any time… Still, there’s something powerful about holding a physical copy of a manuscript book in my hands, with all of its splatters, smudges, and notes, and how that makes me think about the woman who wrote and used it.”
At the end of her fellowship, Holup is hosting an event on August 3, from 3-5pm in room 202 of Thompson Library. She will display the recipe books she has been studying and share her results in testing selected recipes. Anybody is welcome, and they will also be able to pick up a copy of an anthology cookbook: all of the recipes Holup has tested compiled into one source. Holup reflects, “Food is meant to be shared, and I want to make sure that the public has access to these historical recipes so that they live on.”
