Notes on Cookbooks

Remember when people actually wrote books?
I mean real books like cookbooks that readers consumed faster than the speed of printing?

Recently found a note about a blogger who writes about her cookbook collection. Why not, I could do that; or at least I could have before I gave away about half of my collection (now down to a paltry 200 (+/_). But the ones kept are the ones worth writing about. After all if I am not actually going to cook much anymore, why not celebrate the shared experience of the authors in my own words.


c. 1962



Of the most precious books I value are three by Lillian Langseth-Christensen. A Google search resulted in no matches for her name which is disheartening since she wrote articles for the one time much touted magazine Gourmet. But Langseth-Christensen is no more and neither is the magazine. Searching http://www.gourmet.com/ for her archive of articles I found ten. Ten - that's it!  She wrote at least a hundred articles over the decades but those ten are the only ones archived online. And I gave away years of Gourmet back issues when we last moved. Bummer.

Trying amazon.com I learned that she published at least nine cookbooks of which my three are merely a sample. All three came from used book stores, cost a pittance but offer a wealth of information.

The 1962 "The No Cook Cookbook, published by Coward-McCann In., New York, is THE cookbook for those who love good food - with maximum pleasure and minimum effort," and was my introduction to her recipes. Found this book for $4.50  in a small bookseller on Cape Cod and was thrilled with the find. Do not think for a moment this book is outdated; who has time to cook anymore?  In spite of half of Americans being overweight, at least a third say they cannot cook which is the common denominator of weight control. Lillian approaches the idea of serving good food without fuss by buying the best ingredients and using simple processes.  A no-brainer if you ask me.

c. 1963

Next came "The Instant Epicure Cookbook," 1963, features an oddly titled chapter "Outdoor or Plug-in-Anywhere Cooking" that only underscores the fact LLC was far ahead of her time. How many of you have a George Foreman Grill?

About the same time I fetched LLC's "Mystic Seaport Cookbook, 350 Years of New England Cooking" published 1970 by the Marine Historical Association, Inc. and Galahad Books of New York. The book ends with the chapter on 'Mystic Meals and Menus,' complete with the definition of "Sunday dinner should come between church and the Sunday nap, and its preparation should be worked down to such a fine art that it need not absorb the entire morning." Works for me, especially the nap part.



c. 1970



The Mystic cookbook also marks the beginning of 'designing' cookbooks and is quite a departure from the former two.  Neither of the above have any illustrations whatsoever but some how the Mystic book rated black and white photographs and some decorative woodcuts. Color photography and food styling were yet to be realized in the marketing of cookbooks.

 

c. 1970

 

c. 1970

The photographs are not of the actual dishes as you might expect but rather of New England crafts, kitchen and old cooking tools. A little bit of history fit between the recipes.

What I do not have is her last book and I will look forever for the tome.


Lillian first went to Vienna in the 1920s to study under Josef Hoffmann, of the Vienna Secession school of  architect and design. Among other buildings he designed the Palais Stoclet one of the forerunners of 20th-Century modern design. What would Vienna have been like in the 1920s, I can only wonder. LLC was fluent in German (her mother's name was Gaertner), and she adopted Vienna as her second home returning often over the coming decades. It seemed fitting that her last endeavor focused on her favorite place and time.

From the web:

A Design for Living: Vienna in the Twenties, by Lillian Langseth-Christensen. Viking $18.95

Vienna in the 1920's was an enormous head on a tiny body. The peace settlement at Versailles had destroyed the Hapsburg Empire, leaving the great capital all dressed up in increasingly shabby clothes that no one wanted to see any more. No one, that is, but artistic types who knew that the life of the mind was flourishing now that politics was out of the way. Lillian Langseth-Christensen was such an individual, and she persuaded her parents, rich New Yorkers, to let her go to Vienna to study with Josef Hoffmann. Out of that three-year stay comes this elegant, graceful little memoir. Highly recommended.

As a student of decorative arts more than cooking arts her descriptions of Vienna's landmarks were a treasure to me in graduate school. See cookbooks can do much more than just list needed ingredients.
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