by Jeremy Hunt
Daily Lobo
This isn't your grandmother's cookbook, but it might be your great-great-grandmother's cookbook.
One of the Center for Southwest Research's recent acquisitions is "El Libro de Cocina" by French chef Jules GouffÇ.
It is a Mexican edition of a classic Spanish cookbook similar to the modern "The Joy of Cooking," said Mike Kelly, the center's director.
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A copy of the book sold for $2,885 at an auction in February, according to DsLoan.com, a rare bookseller's Web site.
The book, published in 1893, is more than recipes and ingredients, Kelly said.
"It's a compendium of things about how to prepare food from slaughter to the table. It's not just how to make something," he said. "It's a snapshot into the foodways at a particular point in a society's development and growth."
The illustrated book includes sections on herbs, pastries, wine and liquor.
It also has guides, including how to kill and skin a rabbit and the proper way to fold a napkin.
Kelly said the book was a standard for most middle and upper-middle class families.
"It probably was in every kitchen of folks who entertained a little bit or had resources to prepare food in different ways with different settings," he said. "The average farmer might not have it."
Kelly said about 1,500 copies of the book might still exist, but fewer than 100 are in good condition.
Most of the copies were probably passed down through generations as the family cookbook, Kelly said.
"If you're a cook and you use a cookbook, you spill on it," he said. "You're always spilling ingredients - your flour or eggs or seasoning are falling. This particular copy does not have any of those problems."
Kelly said the book would be useful to students studying 19th century Mexico.
"If they're reading something that mentions a spice or utensil, they could go to this," he said. "It's a window into how a certain sector of society went about their everyday life."
