California Chic
Ladies of California
California Recipe Book
San Francisco: Cubery & Co, 1875
Published in San Francisco by an unidentified group of women, this book contains 165 recipes. Our copy contains more than a dozen additional recipes, from newspaper clippings and handwritten attachments by a former owner, or owners.
TX715.C3555 1875
Landmarks Club
The Landmarks Club Cook Book
Los Angeles: The Out West company, 1903
This recipe collection was edited by Charles Fletcher Lummis (1859-1928), a Los Angeles Times journalist, ethnographer, and museum founder who was noted for his Indian rights activism. Landmarks is notable for the inclusion of Spanish-American, Mexican, and Peruvian recipes (some of which are advertised as being printed in English for the first time) that make up the opening chapter of the book.
TX715.L261 1903
Harriette Maxon Thayer
The Gilbert Thayer Cook Book: Life-Giving Preparations of Food Combinations
Los Angeles, 1927
In the 1920s in Los Angeles, Gilbert Thayer and his wife, Harriett Maxon Thayer, had a thriving health food enterprise. The couple owned multiple ‘Gilbert Thayer’ restaurants in the city, published multiple cookbooks and nutritional guides, and had a private theater where Gilbert gave lectures on healthy eating.
TX715.T3715 1927
California agricultural and produce companies, particularly the California Fruit Growers Exchange (Sunkist Growers, Inc.) heavily promoted citrus and California crops in the early 20th century via corporate cookbooks. Images of sunny fields and juicy fruit inadvertently promoted the state of California itself, and is believed to have inspired many families to relocate to Southern California during the Great Depression.
California Associate Raisin Company
Souvenir California Raisin Recipe Book
Fresno: California Associated Raisin Co.
TX813.R34 S68 1900z
California Fruit Growers Exchange
Sunkist Recipes for Every Day
Los Angeles: California Fruit Growers Exchange, 1935
TX813.O6 S862 1935
Prohibition ended in 1935, and California winemakers created the Wine Institute (1934) and the Wine Advisory Board (1938) to promote the industry that had been crushed by more than a decade of legal restrictions and altered views of the role of alcohol in private life. Culinary historian Megan J. Elias notes that wine advertisements in the mid-20th century emphasized wine’s role in fine cooking, and promoted the idea of wine and relaxation, and as the ideal pairing to adult dinners in the home. World War II restrictions meant it was hard to import French and Italian wines, and so the industry promoted the quality of American wines, and specifically California wines, as equal to their European counterparts. California wine cookbooks also carried on the legacy of Sunkist's cookbooks, in promoting the state as the home of fresh, vibrant produce, with a cuisine to match.
Mona Van Dyke
Cooking with Wine Recipes
Lodi, Calif: Roma Wine Company, 1935
TX726.C67 1935
California Wine Advisory Board
Wine Cookery the Easy Way
San Francisco: Wine Institute, 1967
TX726.W54 1967
California Wine Advisory Board
Favorite Recipes of California Winemakers
San Francisco: Wine Institute, 1963
TX726.C28 1963
Sunset Magazine
Sunset Cook Book of Favorite Recipes
San Francisco: Lane Publishing Co, 1949
Sunset magazine is a lifestyle magazine focusing on homes, gardening, and cooking in the American West. It was created by Southern Pacific Railroad in 1898 to sell an image of the West Coast to travelers, to counter possibly negative ideas of the ‘Wild West’ and promote the area as a tourist destination. By the late 1940s, and with a population boom in California, the magazine, now under new ownership, shifted to become a western version of Better Homes and Gardens.
TX715.S949 1949
Despite being a geographically diverse state, there’s a popular image of California—palm trees, ocean waves, fruit orchards, and vineyards--that has been used to market cookbooks over the decades, whether the audience is the local community or a national audience.
Genevieve A. Callahan
The California Cook Book, for Indoor and Outdoor Eating
New York: M. Barrows, 1946
TX715.C1547 1946
Carl and Joan Stromquist
Southern California Beach Recipe: Recipes from Favorite Coastal Restaurants, Malibu to Laguna Beach
Santa Fe, N.M.: Tierra Publications, 1990
TX715.S9186 1990
Jane Sherrod Singer
Cooking with the Stars; a Collection of Recipes Tested in the Kitchens of Hollywood
South Brunswick: A.S. Barnes, 1970
The collection of celebrities who share recipes is impressive, and include Jane Fonda, Elvis Presley, Cary Grant, and Bette Davis. However, the discerning reader may question whether Princess Grace really did submit a recipe for ‘Monaco Marinade Casserole’...
TX715.S62 1970
Helen Evans Brown (1904-1964)
West Coast Cook Book
Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1952
Helen Evans Brown was a chef and cookbook author who was recognized as the authority on West Coast food in the 1950s and 1960s. Born in Brooklyn, she ran a catering business on the East Coast before relocating to Pasadena in the 1930s, where she worked as a food critic. In the 1940s she began gathering recipes, with the aid of her husband Philip, who served as her taste-tester and research assistant. West Coast Cook Book was published in 1952, and is considered a classic regional cook book. Not only does it provide recipes, but was enhanced with information on the historical and social significance of the food featured. In many ways she defined what we think of when we think of California cuisine, through the context she provided for her recipes, and her promotion of fresh produce, especially home-grown fruits, vegetables, and herbs that were found in many southern California backyards.
TX715.B874 1952
Alice Waters (b. 1944)
Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook
New York: Random House, 1982
In many ways the heir to Helen Evans Brown, Alice Waters was another East Coast transplant (she was born in New Jersey) who moved to California to study at Berkeley. As a student she studied abroad in France, a period that shaped her attitudes to food and its preparation. She opened her restaurant, Chez Panisse, in Berkeley in 1971, with a menu that used fresh, organic, and seasonal produce that was locally and sustainably farmed as its foundation. This, naturally, limited the ingredients available. This gave an immensely local character to the menu, refining what ‘California cuisine’ meant, and set Chez Panisse as a starting point in the farm-to-table movement. Chez Panisse is frequently cited as one of the best restaurants in America, and was awarded a Michelin star in the early 2000s.
Recent accession