(no subject)

[camwyn]

Now that I'm living in Lovecraft Country I figure I might as well take advantage of the fact. Last night I went out after work and visited the oldest bookstore I could find and came home with a small, battered, vaguely funny-smelling volume of ancient lore for my troubles.

'Course, ancient in this case means copyright 1859, and the lore in question is all kitchen stuff. And I don't think Mrs. Cornelius was mad or just got these headaches, either, but then I haven't gotten more than about twenty pages in yet... it's called The Young Housekeeper's Friend, and the lore in question is all about buying appropriate food, drink, and household tools (mostly for the kitchen) and setting up and maintaining a proper household when one might not necessarily have been properly educated in how to do so by one's mother/governess/whatever. The book's old enough that it doesn't use the word 'recipe'; all the instructions on how to cook this or that are 'receipts', and each section is promised to start off with a minute set of instructions on the techniques used in each receipt, although I haven't gotten out of the introduction yet so I can't vouch for how accurate that is... It just seemed like it would be a really fascinating window on a past age, to see what they thought was important to know and to be able to make.

But, yeah. When you go to a bookstore five minutes before closing and the woman behind the counter tells you "Don't worry- we've been here since 1837, I'm pretty sure we'll be here tomorrow", and you buy something nearly as old as the store on a later visit, it's kinda cool. At least for someone from my part of the States, anyway. Maybe it's different for people who live somewhere older-established.

Comments

[ceitfianna]

I love stuff like that. I've bought strange books mainly for oh you're old and interesting before. Also I miss that as Michigan is old but not like Pennsylvania.

[bjornwilde]

That's pretty cool.

[camwyn]

They also had a volume called The New England Cookbook from... gmph. I wanna say 1905. Compiled and put out by a coal company, of all things. I bought that one two days before. Decent condition, too, which is impressive when the book has a printed or embossed cover- cookbooks are very prone to rubbed or worn-down covers, according to the guy who was at the store counter that day.

[leeshajoy]

That book is older than my home state.

[camwyn]

I admit, I'm partly wondering if I'm going to be reading along in this thing and hit a section where the writer talks about slaves in the kitchen. This one is copyright 1859, but it's apparently a later edition, and the original was published in the 1840s- there are two prefaces and the second has Mrs. Cornelius apologizing at some length for the flaws in her original work and hoping the additions and changes she's made will improve it... either way, we're talking about a book that was written and printed when it was legal to buy and sell human beings, although not necessarily in the area where the book was printed (I'm not sure if it's a New England publishing house or not).

[derien]

That IS cool. I have a hard time resisting old books. One of my favorites is Our Deportment - I think our paper copy is the same edition as the one they have on Gutenberg.