Kenneth Spencer Research Library

This is the first in a short series of posts highlighting students’ projects from Laura Mielke’s Spring 2025 class, “Archives in Scholarship” (ENGL 776). This week’s post was written by Joohye Oh, who graduated from KU in 2025 with a B.A. in English and Spanish. Her research interests include foodways and literacy.

Cookbooks – especially historic ones – are fascinating texts. Unlike 21st-century cookbooks that feature pictures of recipes, touching or interesting narrative asides, and use of less commonly found ingredients, older American cookbooks prioritize presenting readers and users with a no-frills approach to cooking. These cookbooks tend to be text-heavy and use ingredients more likely found in a pantry than a gourmet grocer. A wonderful example of an intriguing historical cookbook is the Fin-de-Siècle Cook Book, published in 1894, which showcases a slice of late 19th-century American foodways and the culinary literacy of the organized and ambitious women of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Parsons, Kansas. (“Fin de siècle” is a French term meaning “end of century.”)

         

Left: The protective red board cover for the Fin-de-Siècle Cook Book, which is a library-created pamphlet binding. Right: The cookbook’s original cover, slightly deteriorating, with the full title. Call Number: RH B2788. Click images to enlarge.

The Fin-de-Siècle Cook Book consists of two sections. First, there are 58 printed pages that include tipped-in clippings from magazines. Second, in the back, there are 11 pages of faintly lined paper that Whitney Baker, Head of Conservation Services at KU Libraries, believes were bound with the original publication and printed section. Someone, presumably a woman, filled with the blank lined pages with handwritten recipes that she selected and compiled. Instead of being completely different from the printed section, I see the handwritten section as extending the themes of women’s authorship and community while offering contemporary researchers a closer look at earlier American foodways in relation to the genre of the cookbook and literacy practices.

Women’s authorship is especially central to this object. Writing this cookbook arguably opened up new avenues for authorship and empowerment for the Parsons women, like the way literary clubs did for middle-class Black women in the 1890s, as African American literature and literary studies scholar Elizabeth McHenry shows (120). Additionally, the place of authorship for both groups reflects the importance of a shared community space: a church for the Parsons women and a literary club member’s home for the Black women. One can imagine how these women – positioned as authors – selected, arranged, edited, and published these recipes (texts). This model of authorship furthers the legacy of women as authors in the cookbook genre. In fact, several of the earliest known American cookbooks – like The Virginia Housewife by Mary Randolph (1824), a text that showcases the elaborate culinary repertoire of the Southern elite (Fisher 19) – are powerful texts by knowledgeable women, two characteristics also found in the handwritten portion of the Fin-de-Siècle cookbook.

Community as an essential part of learning to read and write can also be inferred from the processes related to producing this text; in other words, these “[community] cookbooks function as literate practices of a community, sponsored by the community members who were themselves cooks, contributors, readers, organizers and editors” (Mastrangelo 73). Indeed, physical traces of this can be seen via each recipe’s attribution to a specific woman as well as the broader fact that the women in Parsons were using their social and technical skills to engage in readerly and writerly practices tied to their growing culinary literacy. To write a cohesive cookbook, they would have had to learn the characteristics of the cookbook genre as well as its subgenres like recipes and instructions. The clear grasp of these characteristics and deft culinary knowledge is present in the neat organization of the cookbook and mirrored in the handwritten recipes which give specific unit measurements for ingredients and reflect a strong awareness of effective kitchen habits. The writer of the handwritten portion continues the practice of attributing specific recipes to specific women: for example, the “Tomatoes Pickles” recipe is attributed to Mrs. Dean while the “Coffee Cake” recipe, found a few pages later, is attributed to “Annie.”

The diversity of recipes in the second (handwritten) section hints at the importance of homemade food in the 19th century. Specifically, as someone whose culinary practices are greatly influenced by 21st-century food systems (easy availability of ingredients, prepared foods, and new food media) it is a little surprising at times to see recipes like “Good Tomato Catsup” and the instructions for mayonnaise/aioli in a “Salad” because these are two products I associate more closely with Heinz and Hellman’s. The appearance of these two condiments seems to reflect the different food practices for a woman and her household in Parsons before the advent of supermarkets and easy availability of industrial food items.

Together, the first and second parts of the Fin-de-Siècle Cook Book offer a small glimpse into the complex and vibrant American foodways of the late 19th century and their broader historical and cultural contexts. The handwritten recipes carefully capture the specialized knowledge, skills, and dedication that the woman compiler most likely possessed while also reinforcing the idea that community and gendered authorship exist in a text often overlooked as simply being a collection of memories or a collection of delightful eating. Cookbooks and recipes, just like the small handwritten portion at the back of the Fin-de-Siècle Cook Book, are masterful representations of how literacy exists in the spaces and places sometimes overlooked because of who we consider to be authors and what we consider to be literature – even if that literature is mostly pickled green tomatoes recipes.

Joohye Oh
ENGL 776 student, Spring 2025

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Elspeth Healey, Phil Cunningham, Caitlin Klepper, Whitney Baker, and Shelby Schellenger at Spencer Research Library; English 776 peers; Professor Laura Mielke; and the ladies of Parsons who compiled this cookbook.

Works Cited

Baker, Whitney. “Re: Parsons cookbook.” Email received by Joohye Oh and Caitlin Klepper, 24 April 2025.

Fisher, Carol. The American Cookbook: A History. McFarland, 2006 (Call Number: X715 .F534 2006).

Mastrangelo, Lisa. “Community Cookbooks: Sponsors of Literacy and Community Identity.” Community Literacy Journal, vol. 10, no. 1, 2015, pp. 73–86.

McHenry, Elizabeth. Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies. Duke University Press, 2002 (Call Number: PS153.N5 M36 2002).

St. John’s Episcopal Church. Fin-de-Siècle Cook Book. Parsons, Kansas, 1894 (Call Number: RH B2788).

Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created this series to provide a lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique items at Spencer. “That’s Distinctive!” is meant to show that the library has something for everyone regardless of interest. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, you can leave a comment at the bottom of this page. All collections, including those highlighted on the blog, are available for members of the public to explore in the Reading Room during regular hours.

This week on That’s Distinctive! I am sharing a few items from the Katie Armitage papers. Per the finding aid, “Katie Hart Armitage is a Lawrence, Kansas-based independent historian. [She] has worked both in a voluntary and in an official capacity at the Watkins Museum of History in Lawrence and the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka, as a researcher, consultant, educator, and tour guide.” The collection, which consists of eight boxes and three oversize folders, “has been arranged into three series: Programs and special projects, Correspondence and Lawrence community materials, and Research materials.”

The items shared today are recipes from the Great Depression era, plus a later article from the Lawrence Journal-World titled “Depression Memories.” In the United States, the Great Depression was a severe economic downturn that spanned the 1930s. The stock market crash of 1929 marked the beginning of a decade of poverty, deflation, and lost opportunities. As noted in the Journal-World article, families had little money to get by. They could only afford the essentials, which meant they had to get creative with their recipes.

I found these documents interesting because it can be surreal to think about living through an event such as the Great Depression. We often don’t think about how those times affected people and the memories they left behind. As you look at the recipes, think about whether you would want to try them. Being a picky eater, they don’t sound too appetizing to me. But, I am sure that I would do whatever was needed to get by.

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services

Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created this series to provide a lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique items at Spencer. “That’s Distinctive!” is meant to show that the library has something for everyone regardless of interest. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, you can leave a comment at the bottom of this page. All collections, including those highlighted on the blog, are available for members of the public to explore in the Reading Room during regular hours.

This week on That’s Distinctive! I am sharing an item from our collection of Lawrence Public Schools (USD 497) records. The collection spans 1858 to 2022 and contains a myriad of items including records, reports, newsletters, yearbooks, and photographs. The collection consists of 144 boxes, 33 oversize boxes, 24 oversize folders, 143 video tapes, 18 audio tapes, and seven CDs. According to the collection’s finding aid, “the State of Kansas unified Lawrence schools in 1965, creating Lawrence Unified School District #497, or the Lawrence Public Schools. This was during an era when schools were consolidating across the state in part due to better transportation options.”  

The pages shared below are from “Charlsia’s Cordley [Elementary School] Recipe Book.” The document is undated, although other items in the box range from 1962 to 2012. The recipe book contains various recipe entries for date cake, applesauce salad, refrigerator rolls, and more. I assume the recipes were submitted by students.

Before finding this item, I did not know that the USD 497 collection existed. I was digging through the finding aids looking for old recipes when I found this folder. I thought it would be fun to share given the school district is here in Lawrence.

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services

Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created the series because I genuinely believe there is something in our collections for everyone, whether you’re writing a paper or just want to have a look. “That’s Distinctive!” will provide a more lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique materials at Spencer – including items that many people may not realize the library holds. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

This week on That’s Distinctive! I am sharing the tastiest collection I have ever found. It houses 62 recipes from central and southern Mexico dating to the early nineteenth century. Most of the recipes are undated, though one is dated 1817. The recipes are written in Spanish and Castilian with no authors indicated, though a few – like the recipe for “marmones” – include a name that appears to be a recipient (in this case Doña Maria Rafaela Vazquez). The recipes (both loose leaf and bound) were housed in a leather wrapper when they arrived at the library. For their preservation, the recipes have been re-housed in folders, and the leather wrapper kept with the collection. Just a little fun fact: the collection was processed by our former Spanish and Portuguese Preservation and Processing student, Indira Garcia Varela, back in 2019.

Examples of recipes within the collection include directions for making “enpanadas” (as it is spelled in the manuscript), tamales, tortas, and buñuelos. I am sharing three recipes below with a translation for bodin provided by Whitney Baker, Head of Conversation Services at KU Libraries, and Dr. Milton Machuca-Galvez, Assistant Librarian for Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. The recipes shown below are titled Bodin, Reseta de las Enpanadas, and Leche de Piña.

So why this collection? Having Mexican heritage myself, stumbling upon this collection in the finding aid really tugged at my heartstrings. The more I learned about the collection, the more fascinated I became. Sifting through the recipes, there were many items and words I recognized, and it can be interesting to see how the spelling of words has changed with time. The recipes are handwritten, which helps call to mind the person who wrote down the recipe roughly two hundred years ago. I was hesitant to share items in a language other than English given much of our audience is English speaking, but the collection is too fun to not to highlight.

The recipe for reseta de las enpanadas. Call Number: MS 346. Click images to enlarge.

The recipe for leche de piña, undated. Call Number: MS 346. Click image to enlarge.

Bodin = a 1 taza de leche 2/1 de pan frances, 6 huebos, una mantequilla, pasas y almendras. Todo esto se revuelbe muy bien, y se unta el sartén con mantequilla para que no se pegue hasta que esté de punto de Xericaya

Pudding = Add to 1 cup of milk, (half a?) French bread, six eggs, butter, raisins and almonds. Mix all of this well, and rub a frying pan with butter so that it doesn’t stick until it’s at the point of [consistency of] a jericalla [a Mexican custard dessert].

The gist of the last sentence, better worded, might be, “rub a frying pan with butter so it doesn’t stick, and mix all of this well until it’s at the consistency of a jericalla [Mexican custard dessert].”

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services

Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created the series because I genuinely believe there is something in our collections for everyone, whether you’re writing a paper or just want to have a look. “That’s Distinctive!” will provide a more lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique materials at Spencer – including items that many people may not realize the library holds. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

Coming up next week is Independence Day (July 4th). Many Fourth of July celebrations involve family get-togethers for quality time, food, and fireworks. In honor of this family time, we are sharing a cookbook out of our collections: 100 Years (1861-1961): Kansas Official Centennial Cook Book, to be exact. The book, published by the American Association of University Women in Manhattan, Kansas, shares favorite recipes of families throughout Kansas in commemoration of the state’s 100th anniversary. While we are just sharing a small portion of the recipes in the book, there are many more in its 101 pages. No matter how you celebrate the upcoming holiday, we hope it involves some good food and quality time.

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services