With the success of Julie and Julia at the movies this summer, more people are aware of the amazing Julia Child. Some may have viewed her as a childhood memory because of her many years of cooking on TV. What many people don't know is that the publication of Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1961 was a watershed event. Before 1961, relatively few cook books were published each year. After 1961, the number of titles of cook books exploded to the tens of thousands.
D. Appleton-Century published Elsie de Wolfe's Recipes for Successful Dining in 1934. When I looked at it, I was taken by the idea of a book by a prominent social figure in the midst of the Depression. I googled her social name, Lady Mendl, to get more information. The Wikipedia article article was not the first in the list of results. The first was a Tea Room in New York City. If I had been around in the 1930's, I would have recognized her as a celebrity. She was actually better known as an interior designer. Read and learn.
If you search for this book on-line, be aware that it was reprinted after World War II. The copy pictured is the first printing from 1934.
No comments:
Post a Comment