Not your average cookbook!

[FL-Jeeper]

Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook, Copyright 1950

http://www.amazon.com/Culinary-Arts-...dp/B000FIMUHI#

I've had this here cookbook for nearly thirty years and to say that it has served me well would be an understatement. The book was a hand-me-down gift from my Grandmother at the tender age of 19, when I had taken a job as a ship's cook on a 65' sloop out of Miami. I was tasked with serving 3 squares a day to nearly 30 crew and passengers, when I could barely boil water and make toast at the same time. In a galley not much bigger than my current linen closet, I learned how to cook everything from 4 course Thanksgiving dinners to breakfast cooked to order. I've put this book through it's paces and it has been dragged around the globe with me and while it's corners are dented, the spine is now made of duct tape and the edges of the pages are brown with age, I use it to this day.

It contains a wealth of information pertaining to not only old-school recipes but proper food preparation and storage. It goes so far as to include diagrams complete with dimensions and required/suggested materials that explain how to construct such items as storage (root) cellars and food driers. With ingredients in some of the recipes like beef suet, lard and bacon fat, it is NOT a "healthy" cookbook. Contrarily it is from an era when food was cooked fresh caught and picked rather than packed & crated from 1,000's of miles away... if not brought in from the other side of the globe. During an era when you needed to know how to properly can food (it's in here), smoke fish (it's in here) how to bake bread, etc, etc, etc.

Would you like to know how to properly prepare frog's legs and then saute or fry them? How about dressing & trussing a rabbit to make a nice Hassenpfeffer? Or how to make a nice squirrel stew?

I shit ya not, there are recipes for Roasted or Stuffed Opossum and even Reindeer Pot Roast in here.

Brain Rissoles anyone? *chuckle*

On a serious note, this is one great little "cookbook" for both the experienced and novice kitchen ninja.

And it's not a bad resource to have should the SHTF.

[bacpacker]

That sounds like a good cookbook. Specially for bad time, if you have the energy to pick it up. I put it on my wishlist.

[Katrina]

This is one cookbook junkie that will be adding this to her wish list too My old book is from the late 1800's but its a hodgepodge of things like how to cook certain meals , speak a foreign language , etiquette, etc.

[bacpacker]

We just got ours in last week. What little I have browsed thru it, there is a boat load of stuff to choose from. I am very pleased with it.

[ladyhk13]

I've been looking at the different editions and am wondering if it is worth buying a newer version which has the same old recipes but has lots of pics to help explain instead of an older version with minimal explanations but worth more money. Thoughts?