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[The list of cookbooks at the end, is all live links....LOL]

http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/books/book_41.cfm

“Aunt Babette’s” Cook Book
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By Aunt Babette
Cincinnati: Block Pub. and Print Co.
Interest: Jewish
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Introduction

“Aunt Babette’s” Cook Book: Foreign and domestic receipts for the household: A vaulable collection of receipts and hints for the housewife, many of which are not to be found elsewhere.
By “Aunt Babette”
Cincinnati: Block Pub. and Print Co. co., c1889

This is one of the many books selected to represent the cooking of diverse ethnic groups which were published in America beginning in the 19th century. The first Jewish cookbook, Esther Levy’s Jewish Cookery Book, was published in Philadelphia in 1871. It was a kosher book whose intent was to show that fine dining could be achieved within the Jewish Kasruth laws. That first American Jewish cookbook was published in only one edition and is very scarce. By the time Aunt Babette wrote her cookbook, the Reform Movement within Judiasm was taking hold and her book, along with the others selected for this compilation were non Kosher, showing, perhaps, the growing assimilation of the Jewish community.

“Aunt Babette” was very popular, had many printings and was in print for more than 25 years. The recipes are American, English, French and German as well as Jewish. That the book is non-kosher is readily apparent by the many recipes for oysters, crab, ham, shrimp and lobster. Many recipes have German names: Mohn Plaetzchen (Poppy Seed Cookies), Pfefferneusse (Nutmeg Cakes), Baseler Leckerlein, German Lebkuchen, Leberknadel (Liver Dumplings), and Gansleber in Sulz (Goose Liver in Goose Fat), for example.

Perhaps the most interesting chapter is that entitled Easter Dishes, which is in fact offers Passover etiquette and recipes. There are recipes for Matzo-Kugel, Matzos Pudding or Schalet, Potato Pudding, Chrimsel, Ueberschlagene Matzos or Matzos Dipped in Eggs, Macaroons, Mandeltorte and Matzoh-Mehl Cake.

All in all, this is a very good cookbook with many international recipes.

For other non-kosher Jewish cookbooks, see:

* The Neighborhood Cook Book
* Greenbaum, The International Jewish Cook Book

For other books with some Jewish recipes or mention of Jewish culinary practice, see:

* Randolph, Virginia Housewife 1838
* De Voe, Market Asssistant 1867
* Croly’s Jennie June’s American Cookery Book 1870
* Miss Corson’s Practical American Cookery
* Kander, The Settlement Cookbook 1901
* Mrs. Rorer’s New Cookbook 1902
* Wood’s Foods of the Foreign Born

http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/books/book_67.cfm

Chinese - Japanese Cook Book
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By Sara Bosse, nee Eaton
Chicago, Rand McNally [c1914].
Interest: Asian
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Introduction

Chinese-Japanese Cook Book
By Sara Bosse And Onoto Watanna [pseud.]
Chicago, Rand McNally [c1914].

This is a most intriguing little book. It is another in our selection of ethnic influenced books available in America after the Civil War into the 1920s. This is one of the earliest half-dozen Chinese cookbooks published in the United States; and possibly the first Japanese one.

The authors begin their preface by indicating that Chinese cooking has become very popular in America in recent years and that certain Japanese dishes are also in high favor. They mention that Chinese restaurants are now to be found in all the large cities of America and that their patronage “is of the very best, and many of the dishes are justly famous.”

They tell the reader that there is no reason why these same dishes should not be cooked and served in any American home. “When it is known how simple and clean are the ingredients used to make up these oriental dishes, the Westerner will cease to feel that natural repugnance which assails one when about to taste a strange dish of a new and strange land.”

There follows a brief overview of Chinese and Japanese cuisines. The authors indicate that the recipes which follow have been selected to appeal to the Western palate and which can be prepared with the kitchen utensils of Western civilization. They also indicate that many of the recipes prepared by the Chinese cooks in this country are actually modifications of their native dishes.

Turning to the recipes, we find many which we would recognize today, probably fairly authentic for Chinese restaurants cooking for Americans in that era. Chinese dishes include Bird’s-nest Soup, Seaweed Soup, Sweet and Sour Fish, Steamed Duck, Chop Suey, Chow Main, Fried Rice, Beautiful Moon Tarts, and Almond Cakes.

A shorter section of Japanese dishes includes Satsuma Soup (using tofu and miso paste), Hare, Sweet and Sour [Usagi Amai-Sui, which uses syou sauce, mirin sauce, red plums, and Japanese gelatine, and is served with white-bean cakes or rice], and Peony Eggs. Many of the recipes are quite sophisticated. There are even instructions for growing your own bean sprouts at home, which, the authors indicate, are much better than the canned varieties.

All in all, I repeat, a most intriguing little book from the hands of two rather remarkable women.