Anatomy of a Cookbook: The Useful Object and Its Users

The highly regarded Rabelais bookstore boasts one of the largest selections of rare and out-of-print cookbooks in the country. Proprietor Don Lindgren will provide a brief examination of the types of historical evidence found in cookbooks, inside and out. Beyond the recipes, cookbooks reveal a great deal about the authors who write them and the cooks who use them. This presentation will look at clues cookbooks reveal about social and cultural context, and consider how evidence of reader use illuminates issues of ownership, succession, revision, criticism, navigation, and more.