Michigan Cookbooks

 

Introduction

Every day everyone eats, or wants to. In Michigan the ways in which cooks cook have been guided by published cookbooks since the mid-nineteenth century. This was not always the case, as even general-purpose cookbooks in earlier times generally represented a single culinary tradition, whereas today a single-tradition book generally advertises itself as a guide to a particular specialty. Today we take for granted that many cookbooks published in the state, no matter how remote the corner from which they appear, will have a wide range of recipes from around the nation and perhaps the world. This was not always the case, as even general-purpose cookbooks in earlier times generally represented a single culinary tradition, whereas today a single-tradition book generally advertises itself as a guide to a particular specialty. Thus cookbooks from the past serve as guides to the time, place, and community that published them or for whom they were published. By looking at what we find in cookbooks, we can often infer a great deal about the social, nutritional, and cultural lives of families and communities in the past.