Cookery and Foodways
Cookbooks and other materials related to the production and consumption of food can connect us to the past in a unique and relatable way, providing us with a lens with which we can view history through the everyday lives of the people who lived it. The Cookery and Foodways Collection at Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections is a valuable resource for studying social history, culinary and medicinal folkways, gender roles, ethnic traditions, and culinary history. We are home to more than 45,000 cookbooks, as well as over 10,000 pieces of related ephemera, ranging from menus to advertisements.
Strengths of the Cookery and Foodways Collection include materials on distinct regional and ethnic cookery, early American cookbooks, manuscript cookbooks from as early as the 18th century, and community cookbooks. The collection is historically wide-ranging, from early volumes such as Susannah Carter's The Frugal Housewife (1774) and a 1780 edition of one of the earliest medieval cookbooks, The Forme of Cury, to modern popular culture phenomena including Eat Like a Gilmore (2016) and Samin Nosra's Salt. Fat. Acid. Heat (2017).
Resources
Alan and Shirley Brocker Sliker collection of culinary ephemera
Feeding Michigan: 69 distinct cookbooks from communities in Michigan
For more information, please contact Leslie McRoberts