A distant cousin’s comment on Facebook about finding a 1957 Betty Crocker’s Cook Book for Boys and Girls online piqued my interest.
It was heartwarming to read on Facebook how seeing the old cook book brought back memories of my cousin’s childhood in the 1960s. She remembers an aunt giving her sister a later edition and how the book’s recipes and pictures became part of her youth. She wrote, “I love the drawings of the ‘food testers,’ who were supposedly real children who tried out the recipes.”
The Betty Crocker cook book was scanned and posted online on Open Library with all the cooking stains still visible.
My cousin found the mulligan stew recipe her mother used for “my entire life.” She wrote at the end of her Facebook comment, “We’re going to make it on the weekend, enjoy it with gusto, and remember.“
You can see Betty Crocker’s Cook Book for Boys and Girls here and find the cook book and many other books on Open Library, although not all of the books are available online.
Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive. Think of it as a catalogue of books that are available online, in libraries, and in stores.
Searching in Open Library is way for genealogists to find new and old books about topics of interest. I searched for “Picton” to find books about that town in Ontario where my Irish Dever ancestors settled in 1862. I found a couple of books I can read online, including one about the cemetery where they are buried, and others that I can purchase or perhaps borrow from a library. In the right-hand column, you can narrow down your search by time period. To find out if it is available online, click on Accessible under Subject.
The goal of Open Library is to provide a page on the web for every book ever published. The website has more than 20 million edition records online, provides access to 1.7 million scanned versions of books, and links to external sources, such as WorldCat and Amazon. You can learn more here.
I had a later edition of this cookbook, and it too had the drum cake recipe! I made one for my brother’s birthday (on July 3) back in 1970! Thanks for bringing back some memories!
Yes! My brothers & I had that book. Our mother helped us make recipes and we had great fun. I think I still have it. I better go look…