Yes, I’m the kind of guy who reads cookbooks for fun. While going through my library last night I chose as my bedtime reading, The Joy of Cooking 1964 edition. See, I’m deploying in a few days so I figured on making an early Thanksgiving dinner. I wanted gnarly high-fat recipes to go with it.
I noticed in my readings the amazing differences from '64 to present. Now, I’m not just talking about aspics and weird jelly things. The main thing that stuck out to me was the whole cold-war feel to this edition.
To paraphrase: In the"know your ingredients" section I learned to not drink water that’s been contaminated by radioactive fallout (p. 494). And, if you have to eat blackbirds or crow, make sure you parblanch them first (p.480)
You just don’t see this stuff in modern cookbooks (well, maybe a survivalist type thing).
I was curious, since the initial printing of Joy of Cooking was 1931, what kind of stuff has changed from one edition to the other (exempted are the whole “low-fat, less-rich” changes)?
I did a thread on this a few years ago. My mom’s copy of TJoC from the late 60s is the one I grew up with. When I bought my own copy in the 80s, it was almost completely different. I had to search long and hard, in those pre-eBay days, for an older edition that had the recipes I grew up with.
I think they’d make a lot of money if they published various “retro” editions of the book.
The old, original, (ie “good”) editions include recipes and prep tips for such things as opossum, porcupine, turtle, and other various road-kill type critters.
I just busted it out again and for sure, there is a way to cook opossum, and to my surprise, there is the normal recipe for basil pesto. How many people were tuned into pesto in '64? the JoC is pretty amazing.
Yeah, my mom’s has a recipe for Crow. It says something like (maybe someone here can confirm . . .) you should only eat Crow if you’re starving out in the wilderness, because it’s nasty. Then the recipe is like, “Marinate for 24 hours in a dry white wine.” Cracked me up.
I enjoy such sentiments as “If you are a new cook and are called upon to dress a chicken, remember, please, that among other things it has a crop that must be removed – (I am speaking from experience). The following is the best way to prepare a large chicken of doubtful age.” (1931)
I just checked my copy, which used to belong to my mother, and it was published in 1953!
I’m thinking she must have gotten it when she and my father got married.
I, too, have the 1975 edition, a wedding gift. We ought to have a thread showing pictures of our copies of JoC. The covers of mine are held together with strapping tape and the front cover is bespattered with who knows how many things.
I love the section in “Foods We Heat” on microwave cooking. Note the lack of an article with the word microwave. It’s not THE microwave. It’s just microwave.
I would be up for trying muskrat, but creamed celery? Eewww. ::: shudder :::
And I have the recipe in mine! Creamed Celery on page 282!
I don’t see a recipe for muskrat on a quick perusal, but I do see ones for Praire Chicken, Guinea Hen, Pigeons and Squabs, and a whole bunch of recipes for rabbit. And handy pictures on skinning rabbits, hares and squirrels.
freckafree, mine is a smallish hardback, with a gray cover and 8 small “Joy of Cooking” logos on the front. It looks like there may have been a dust jacket at one point, but I don’t have it. The spine is decidely faded, probably from sitting on a kitchen shelf for ages. It’s in pretty good shape, considering its age. There’s a small tear on the spine, but it’s nothing bad.
My mom and sister both passed away around twenty years ago, and I will cherish both cookbooks forever. They have notes in the margins, and recipes stuck in amongst the pages.
Just for the sake of comparison, I’ve got the newest edition of the JoC.
It still mentions “small game” like muskrat, squirrels, etc. but says that there is no longer a need for detailed recipes for those animals. Suffice it to say that if you’re willing to eat these varmints, you probably know how to clean them. They can be cooked like chicken.
The new version seems to be geared more toward ease of preparation and toward healthier recipes. I’ve made recipes from my parents’ 1960s-era Good Housekeeping Cookbook that took most, if not all, of the afternoon. I’ve yet to spend more than an hour on anything from a modern cookbook.
