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Hello everyone! Here’s another scan for you to check out

By the way, I want to throw it out for everyone, every post I make about these books is me providing the *entire* cookbook. I add pictures to the post to kinda give a general idea of what it’s like and to share any weird/interesting recipes I noticed at a glance, but I’d hate for people to think that’s all there is. The full cookbook is available to view on Internet Archive (link in comments) or if you check the spreadsheet on my pinned post, you can also find links to the PDF on Google Drive

This is Recipes for Food and Faith (shoutout to Buzz Johnson for the name, he’s actually credited for creating the title in the book lol), a cookbook from the city of Olympia, Washington. Notice how the pages are in red, yellow, green, and blue for extra pizzazz. Off-topic but when I was a little kid I used to call the red, yellow, green, blue color scheme the “cosmic rainbow”, idk why

This is also one of the few cookbooks I have with markings on it from the past person, which is to be expected because some people actually used these cookbooks and I’m guessing it was easier to mark the pages with notes instead of having a separate notepad for it

Onto the recipes, there’s a mixture of good and bad as always. For example, I never thought to make an apple cider shake but I would totally let someone serve me that. On the other hand, the Eggnog punch on the next page… I personally wouldn’t think something sweet and spicy would work with 7-up but maybe I’m just not adventurous enough

I’m also convinced that this cookbook is the museum for every gelatin salad ever made. I stopped counting after 10 recipes. Fortunately, they made up for it in the main dishes section with the recipe for Barbecups. I never would’ve thought to make something like that on my own but now I really want to

Have fun with this one and of course, sound off in the comments with your thoughts! You already know I’ll be back again soon

Hello everyone! Here’s another scan for you to check out

By the way, I want to throw it out for everyone, every post I make about these books is me providing the *entire* cookbook. I add pictures to the post to kinda give a general idea of what it’s like and to share any weird/interesting recipes I noticed at a glance, but I’d hate for people to think that’s all there is. The full cookbook is available to view on Internet Archive (link in comments) or if you check the spreadsheet on my pinned post, you can also find links to the PDF on Google Drive

This is Recipes for Food and Faith (shoutout to Buzz Johnson for the name, he’s actually credited for creating the title in the book lol), a cookbook from the city of Olympia, Washington. Notice how the pages are in red, yellow, green, and blue for extra pizzazz. Off-topic but when I was a little kid I used to call the red, yellow, green, blue color scheme the “cosmic rainbow”, idk why

This is also one of the few cookbooks I have with markings on it from the past person, which is to be expected because some people actually used these cookbooks and I’m guessing it was easier to mark the pages with notes instead of having a separate notepad for it

Onto the recipes, there’s a mixture of good and bad as always. For example, I never thought to make an apple cider shake but I would totally let someone serve me that. On the other hand, the Eggnog punch on the next page… I personally wouldn’t think something sweet and spicy would work with 7-up but maybe I’m just not adventurous enough

I’m also convinced that this cookbook is the museum for every gelatin salad ever made. I stopped counting after 10 recipes. Fortunately, they made up for it in the main dishes section with the recipe for Barbecups. I never would’ve thought to make something like that on my own but now I really want to

Have fun with this one and of course, sound off in the comments with your thoughts! You already know I’ll be back again soon

Hello everyone and happy Sunday! Can you guess what time it is?

Today we’re taking a trip to Austin, Texas. This is Belles’ Best Recipes, a collection of recipes from (I assume) parents and other family members of Anderson High’s Trojan Belles. The cookbook mentions that they got to go on a trip to England, which makes me think this cookbook was likely a fundraiser for the trip. Weirdly enough, it’s book like these that make me wish I was in high school around this time instead of the 2010’s, because I think this is a much more memorable project than the one and only fundraiser my high school did when I was there, which was a furniture auction

Lamenting aside, if you’ve been following my scanning journey intensely, you’re probably beginning to notice a lot of repeat recipes (although, the preparations might differ. At some point I want to do a deep dive and see if the same dish is done massively differently in other books)

I will say of all the gelatin recipes I’ve come across in these books, the Butter Mint Salad and Cinnamon Jello Salad are unfamiliar to me. The Instant Potato Salad is an interesting choice because I thought the appeal of potato salad was to have the potatoes in cubes and not mashed, but I can see where this recipe was meant to save time. And for a casserole recipe, the Cheeseburger Casserole recipe actually sounds really good.

Naturally, my favorite stuff is always the desserts so I know I would devour most of these. How am I 24 years old and I’m just now learning that brownies exist in a pie form??? I am so making that at some point.

Because this is Texas, there are a few distinctly Southern recipes and some Mexican-style recipes, even though I don’t think all of the Mexican ones can really be called that. That’s what’s fun about these books though, you get recipes that are specific to the region of the people living there

Overall I would say this is a decent book, but definitely sound off your thoughts in the comments as always

Hello everyone and happy Sunday! Can you guess what time it is?

Today we’re taking a trip to Austin, Texas. This is Belles’ Best Recipes, a collection of recipes from (I assume) parents and other family members of Anderson High’s Trojan Belles. The cookbook mentions that they got to go on a trip to England, which makes me think this cookbook was likely a fundraiser for the trip. Weirdly enough, it’s book like these that make me wish I was in high school around this time instead of the 2010’s, because I think this is a much more memorable project than the one and only fundraiser my high school did when I was there, which was a furniture auction

Lamenting aside, if you’ve been following my scanning journey intensely, you’re probably beginning to notice a lot of repeat recipes (although, the preparations might differ. At some point I want to do a deep dive and see if the same dish is done massively differently in other books)

I will say of all the gelatin recipes I’ve come across in these books, the Butter Mint Salad and Cinnamon Jello Salad are unfamiliar to me. The Instant Potato Salad is an interesting choice because I thought the appeal of potato salad was to have the potatoes in cubes and not mashed, but I can see where this recipe was meant to save time. And for a casserole recipe, the Cheeseburger Casserole recipe actually sounds really good.

Naturally, my favorite stuff is always the desserts so I know I would devour most of these. How am I 24 years old and I’m just now learning that brownies exist in a pie form??? I am so making that at some point.

Because this is Texas, there are a few distinctly Southern recipes and some Mexican-style recipes, even though I don’t think all of the Mexican ones can really be called that. That’s what’s fun about these books though, you get recipes that are specific to the region of the people living there

Overall I would say this is a decent book, but definitely sound off your thoughts in the comments as always

Hello everyone! Another day, another scan

This is Manna From Heaven from the certainly recognizable city of San Diego, California. This is one of those books that likes to add little quotes and wise sayings on some of the pages, which, another fun hobby of mine is I really like collecting quotes and stuff. I have a massive Google doc with quotes and proverbs and stuff

This is also one of those books that with the way it’s printed, some of the lettering isn’t very dark, so if you see some lighting inconsistencies, rest assured it’s just that some of the words were lightly printed, it’s not my camera

Onto the book itself though and the recipes, I noticed that pages 29-32 and pages 37-38 are absent from the book. It could very well be just an error as far as numbering the pages, or the other cause is that these pages are actually missing and are actually lost media as a result

In my quick perusal of the book, there are quite a few interesting recipes that I noticed such as the Never Fail Chocolate Frosting, Potato Candy, and Apricot Jam Cookies. There aren’t too many “wtf” recipes, but there are a couple that lean towards the questionable side. I’ll let you have fun discovering those on your own if you check out the PDF (link in comments!)

Thank you for stopping by! Love seeing your comments and stuff as always

Hello everyone! Another day, another scan

This is Manna From Heaven from the certainly recognizable city of San Diego, California. This is one of those books that likes to add little quotes and wise sayings on some of the pages, which, another fun hobby of mine is I really like collecting quotes and stuff. I have a massive Google doc with quotes and proverbs and stuff

This is also one of those books that with the way it’s printed, some of the lettering isn’t very dark, so if you see some lighting inconsistencies, rest assured it’s just that some of the words were lightly printed, it’s not my camera

Onto the book itself though and the recipes, I noticed that pages 29-32 and pages 37-38 are absent from the book. It could very well be just an error as far as numbering the pages, or the other cause is that these pages are actually missing and are actually lost media as a result

In my quick perusal of the book, there are quite a few interesting recipes that I noticed such as the Never Fail Chocolate Frosting, Potato Candy, and Apricot Jam Cookies. There aren’t too many “wtf” recipes, but there are a couple that lean towards the questionable side. I’ll let you have fun discovering those on your own if you check out the PDF (link in comments!)

Thank you for stopping by! Love seeing your comments and stuff as always

Hello everyone! You probably know what time it is by now seeing as my name pops on in this subreddit often enough these past couple weeks lol

This is De-lights of Delta from all the way over in Delta Junction, Alaska. And by doing a small but of research, Delta Junction is a small town. Like, less than 1,000 people small. In a way I think having small-town cookbooks like these yields a little more unique recipes. For example, the Rhubarb Relish and Cottage Cheese Patties aren’t things I’ve seen in most cookbooks. I was also pleasantly surprised to see a recipe that uses tofu because I don’t often see that in older cookbooks

And of course, there’s a few recipes and methods for cooking bear, venison, moose, and… ptarmigan. I had no idea what ptarmigan was until this book. You really do learn something new every day

I am curious if there’s any recipes that stand out to you and definitely feel free to shout them out. As much fun as I have scanning these for you guys, I actually don’t read through all the recipes in these books. I more or less skim a few pages just to see if there’s any that jump out for me to take pictures of for the post. One day I’ll actually go back and read these casually. I’m also not a culinary expert, so I don’t see flaws in ingredients or cooking methods as easily as some might. Every now and again I learn something from you guys, which I truly appreciate

With every scan I upload I feel myself contributing more and more to preserving history. I thank you all for allowing me to share this journey with you

Hello everyone! You probably know what time it is by now seeing as my name pops on in this subreddit often enough these past couple weeks lol

This is De-lights of Delta from all the way over in Delta Junction, Alaska. And by doing a small but of research, Delta Junction is a small town. Like, less than 1,000 people small. In a way I think having small-town cookbooks like these yields a little more unique recipes. For example, the Rhubarb Relish and Cottage Cheese Patties aren’t things I’ve seen in most cookbooks. I was also pleasantly surprised to see a recipe that uses tofu because I don’t often see that in older cookbooks

And of course, there’s a few recipes and methods for cooking bear, venison, moose, and… ptarmigan. I had no idea what ptarmigan was until this book. You really do learn something new every day

I am curious if there’s any recipes that stand out to you and definitely feel free to shout them out. As much fun as I have scanning these for you guys, I actually don’t read through all the recipes in these books. I more or less skim a few pages just to see if there’s any that jump out for me to take pictures of for the post. One day I’ll actually go back and read these casually. I’m also not a culinary expert, so I don’t see flaws in ingredients or cooking methods as easily as some might. Every now and again I learn something from you guys, which I truly appreciate

With every scan I upload I feel myself contributing more and more to preserving history. I thank you all for allowing me to share this journey with you

Hello everyone! Additionally, happy mother’s day to those who are celebrating today. I have another scan to show off

I’m finally getting into the swing of things with this scanning tool. I hadn’t brought this up yet but for my first three scans I did, my Google Drive was acting up like crazy when it came to scanning. It was crashing *constantly*. If I tried to crop a page, it’d crash. If I tried to change the filter, it’d crash. Sometimes just by trying to upload it it’d crash. And then after successfully uploading a page, it would just not appear in my files. I would have to scan a page sometimes 3 or 4 times to get it to work and that got draining really fast especially with some of these larger cookbooks

But then I finally learned that if you push “clear data” on the app settings it magically solves all of your problems, so there’s that. Now I can scan these much easier

This is More Kookin’ for the Kids, with Cooking spelled as “Kookin’” because it probably comes off as more fun. And hooray hooray, this is yet another cookbook where I don’t know what year it was published. By looking at the celebrity section and looking at the local officials who contributed and their years of service, the earliest this book could’ve been printed is 1985, and the latest is around 1990/1991. If someone wants to try and narrow it down further, I welcome you to try

Speaking of the celebrity section, this is the main appeal of this book. The first section of this book is dedicated to “Celebrity Favorites” and includes recipes from Dolly Parton, Carol Burnett, Tom Selleck, etc. I shared most of that section last year in another subreddit and I remember people wanted more pages but now that you have the full PDF, you can see clearly now that the celebrity section is just a few pages. The majority is just general community contributions

Not to say that those aren’t exciting, there’s some ones in here I don’t commonly see. For example, the Circus Peanut Salad is… a choice, but the Orange Glazed Carrots and Monkey Bread sound undeniably good. There’s always treasures and oddities in these sorts of things

Link for the full cookbook is down below. As always, let me know what you guys think! There’s still many more of these to share, so even if this one isn’t your vibe, I have plenty more that I’ll be posting about soon enough

Hello everyone! Additionally, happy mother’s day to those who are celebrating today. I have another scan to show off

I’m finally getting into the swing of things with this scanning tool. I hadn’t brought this up yet but for my first three scans I did, my Google Drive was acting up like crazy when it came to scanning. It was crashing *constantly*. If I tried to crop a page, it’d crash. If I tried to change the filter, it’d crash. Sometimes just by trying to upload it it’d crash. And then after successfully uploading a page, it would just not appear in my files. I would have to scan a page sometimes 3 or 4 times to get it to work and that got draining really fast especially with some of these larger cookbooks

But then I finally learned that if you push “clear data” on the app settings it magically solves all of your problems, so there’s that. Now I can scan these much easier

This is More Kookin’ for the Kids, with Cooking spelled as “Kookin’” because it probably comes off as more fun. And hooray hooray, this is yet another cookbook where I don’t know what year it was published. By looking at the celebrity section and looking at the local officials who contributed and their years of service, the earliest this book could’ve been printed is 1985, and the latest is around 1990/1991. If someone wants to try and narrow it down further, I welcome you to try

Speaking of the celebrity section, this is the main appeal of this book. The first section of this book is dedicated to “Celebrity Favorites” and includes recipes from Dolly Parton, Carol Burnett, Tom Selleck, etc. I shared most of that section last year and I remember people wanted more pages but now that you have the full PDF, you can see clearly now that the celebrity section is just a few pages. The majority is just general community contributions

Not to say that those aren’t exciting, there’s some ones in here I don’t commonly see. For example, the Circus Peanut Salad is… a choice, but the Orange Glazed Carrots and Monkey Bread sound undeniably good. There’s always treasures and oddities in these sorts of things

Link for the full cookbook is down below. As always, let me know what you guys think! There’s still many more of these to share, so even if this one isn’t your vibe, I have plenty more that I’ll be posting about soon enough

Hello everyone! I have another scan to show off, and the link is down below in the comments

This is Receipts and Remedies, a 1985 booklet from the Chehalis Valley Historical Society. You might click on the PDF link and look through the pages and go “wow, the pages look really warped”

And that’s because as you can see in the picture in this post, this booklet is held together by literal staples. I tried everything to hold down the pages, but it barely worked. Not to mention some of the pages are actually coming apart, some of the ink on the text is a little faded. It honestly would’ve been a lot easier if I just recreated the book online

In fact, that’s actually what I did through the use of COOKY AI, the free-

No I’m kidding. No AI is used in this process, I promise

I think it ended up being worth it in the end, though, because this is one of my exciting books. There’s a lot of recipes in here I have never seen before, but that could be because these recipes are a lot more “country” based. This book probably doesn’t offer much in the way of actual culinary inspiration. I don’t think people out here are trying to make coffee with wheat bran and molasses. It does offer some pretty fascinating historical perspective though, especially because this book has food preservation tips that don’t use a fridge, and it even tells you how to make perfume with picked flowers and glycerin

That’s the second fun thing about this book, it also has beauty tips and home remedies, such as tips on creating homemade dyes and how to cure ailments. Some of these probably aren’t practical anymore, but I can definitely see in the event of an apocalypse or something where this information would be nice to have

All in all, sorry that the scan isn’t picture perfect, but I hope you nevertheless have fun checking out the recipes and tips. Catch you guys on the next post!

Hello everyone! I have another scan to show off, and the link is down below in the comments

This is Receipts and Remedies, a 1985 booklet from the Chehalis Valley Historical Society. You might click on the PDF link and look through the pages and go “wow, the pages look really warped”

And that’s because as you can see in the picture in this post, this booklet is held together by literal staples. I tried everything to hold down the pages, but it barely worked. Not to mention some of the pages are actually coming apart, some of the ink on the text is a little faded. It honestly would’ve been a lot easier if I just recreated the book online

In fact, that’s actually what I did through the use of COOKY AI, the free-

No I’m kidding. No AI is used in this process, I promise

I think it ended up being worth it in the end, though, because this is one of my exciting books. There’s a lot of recipes in here I have never seen before, but that could be because these recipes are a lot more “country” based. This book probably doesn’t offer much in the way of actual culinary inspiration. I don’t think people out here are trying to make coffee with wheat bran and molasses in 2026. It does offer some pretty fascinating historical perspective though, especially because this book has food preservation tips that don’t use a fridge, and it even tells you how to make perfume with picked flowers and glycerin

That’s the second fun thing about this book, it also has beauty tips and home remedies, such as tips on creating homemade dyes and how to cure ailments. Some of these probably aren’t practical anymore, but I can definitely see in the event of an apocalypse or something where this information would be nice to have

All in all, sorry that the scan isn’t picture perfect, but I hope you nevertheless have fun checking out the recipes and tips. Catch you guys on the next post!

Hello and happy Tuesday. I have another cookbook scan for you all to check out (link to full PDF in comments as always).

This is the Coldwell Banker’s Holiday Cookbook. No year of publication is indicated anywhere in the book, so I unfortunately cannot provide you with that. If someone with a deeper technical knowledge of this book wants to try and guess the year or at least an approximation, please feel free.

This is one of my smaller books that I own, but the recipes are still interesting. Most of them are, as the name implies, holiday-centered, so while it’s a little early to be showing off this one specifically, maybe there’s some cool inspiration for the holidays this year.

I personally like the Sweet Potato Pone and Grandma’s Pumpkin Pie and Grandmom Cookies, and I’m especially curious how well the German Christmas Cookies would turn out (remember when I did recipe attempts? Yeah those were the days).

Of course I’ll let you be the judge of what else is good and what isn’t. Every post I make you guys always chime in with thoughts and I always like reading them. Whether you just browse the preview photos or if you actually look at the full thing, I’m happy to be sharing what I have on hand.

Also if you do check out the PDF and notice a scrap of paper over the last page, whoever gifted this cookbook to the previous owner left their personal phone number on the back. I don’t know if it’s still active or not but I didn’t feel comfortable digitally immortalizing somebody’s phone number with their name attached to it. I didn’t want to cross it out or anything because it’s important to me that I keep these books in the same condition I received them in, so my compromise was just to cover it up as best as I could.

Hello and happy Tuesday. I have another cookbook scan for you all to check out (link to full PDF in comments as always).

This is the Coldwell Banker’s Holiday Cookbook from… I don’t know the year. Unfortunately some of my community books aren’t dated and there’s no indication as to what year it could’ve been published. Whoever put together the book probably didn’t think somebody in 2026 would want to learn more about it.

If anyone wants to try and guess the exact year, be my guess, but I’m going to assume based on the font and the overall aesthetic of the book this could be… late 70s, early 80s? It’s a mystery at this point, but it’s definitely vintage.

But at least the recipes are accessible and easy to come across, and this one has some pretty decent recipes. The Christmas Salad is certainly… interesting, but there’s a few that I really want to try myself, such as the Sweet Potato Pone and Grandma’s Pumpkin Pie and Grandmom Cookies, and I’m especially curious how well the German Christmas Cookies would turn out (yes they’re all sweet things, what can I say I like sugar).

Of course I’ll let you be the judge of what else is good and what isn’t. Every post I make you guys always chime in with thoughts and I always like reading them. Whether you just browse the preview photos or if you actually look at the full thing, I’m happy to be sharing what I have on hand.

Also if you do check out the PDF and notice a scrap of paper over the last page, whoever gifted this cookbook to the previous owner left their personal phone number on the back. I don’t know if it’s still active or not but I didn’t feel comfortable digitally immortalizing somebody’s phone number with their name attached to it. I didn’t want to cross it out or anything because it’s important to me that I keep these books in the same condition I received them in, so my compromise was just to cover it up as best as I could.

Hello everyone and happy Saturday, I got a new scan for you to check out at your disposal. Link is in the comments!

This one comes from the Longview Washington Civic Symphony Auxiliary from 1976. That makes this year the book’s 50th anniversary, which is kinda cool. With these cookbooks the recipes are always a hit or a miss, but this one has a lot of recipes, so rest assured there are at least a few good ones here. I personally wanna try the lemonade-tea base at the beginning of the book. It’s getting hot where I live and lemonade sounds so good.

To those who check out the PDF, I’m sorry if some of the pages end up looking a little wonky in this one. When they put the spiral binding on this book, they must’ve messed something up because some of the pages wanted to keep sticking up. On top of that, I did this scan on the same day as the Edibles From Eminence one, so I was kinda rushing it. Lesson learned, take your time, make sure the pages come out good, don’t worry about rushing through a scan just to get it done. I did another scan yesterday and it looks much cleaner, I’ll be posting it in a couple days because I don’t want to overwhelm people with too many posts at once (I’ll give you a teaser though, it’s a holiday one!).

As always, sound off in the comments with your thoughts and stuff. I love connecting with people on what they think about the recipes, if any of them remind them of stuff from the past, if any of them seem weird, etc.

Hello and happy Saturday! Got a new scan for everyone to check out (by the way, the link is the archive.org link in the comments! These scans are always free and accessible, I promise).

Does anyone remember last year when I posted the recipe for Andalusia Pink? That weird jello mold salad with the non-existent dill dressing? Classic times. This is the book it came from, a 1976 Civic Symphony Auxiliary Cookbook from Longview, Washington. This one doesn’t give a whole lot of background, but the photo at the start is pretty cool to look at.

But despite the Andalusia Pink, there are some good recipes in here too. The punch recipes always sound refreshing but I do not hang around enough people to justify making such a large batch and I’m not smart enough to learn how to scale them down. And I’m not typically a casserole fan but the carrot casserole doesn’t sound half bad. This one’s a little more hefty - there’s a lot of recipes in here.

I do apologize for some of the pages looking a little wonky in this one. When they put the spiral binding on this book, they must’ve messed something up because some of the pages wanted to keep sticking up. On top of that, I did this scan on the same day as the Edibles From Eminence one, so I was kinda rushing it. Lesson learned, take your time, make sure the pages come out good, don’t worry about rushing through a scan just to get it done. I did another scan yesterday and it looks much cleaner, I’ll be posting it in a couple days because I don’t want to overwhelm people with too many posts at once (I’ll give you a teaser though, it’s a holiday one!).

As always, sound off in the comments with your thoughts and stuff. I love connecting with people on what they think about the recipes, if any of them remind them of stuff from the past, if any of them seem weird, etc.

Hello there! In my quest to digitize my cookbook collection, I have another scan for you to check out

Thank you all for your comments and upvotes on the last one. I’m happy to be sticking to my promise I made a while back and seeing that everyone is just as interested in preserving these recipes as I am. I’m happy to keep it going

As said previously, I have about 150 of these books and my collection is expanding all the time because I love collecting these, so there’ll be a lot for me to contribute. Unfortunately not all of them are going to be as exciting as the school lunch one from a couple days, but they should still be fun nonetheless

This one is Edibles From Eminence. It’s a smaller cookbook as far as the community ones go, but that just means it’ll be a quick read. Hopefully at least a few of the recipes stand out even if not all of them do. Have fun!

Hello there! I am back with another scan for you all to check out

I want to thank everyone for such an overwhelmingly positive response to my last post. I tried my best to respond to as many comments as possible but rest assured if I didn’t reply I most certainly read every comment I got. Cookbook history is as important to me as it is to a lot of you so I’m happy to be contributing what I have, regardless if it makes a big or small impact

As said, I have tons of these books. 150 is a reasonable estimate and I’m always getting more since I happen to come across them a lot. I’ll be having fun showing these to you guys

I will say not every cookbook is going to be super exciting. I have about 3 or 4 that are really awesome. The rest of them range from pretty interesting to mediocre. But I still enjoy all of them regardless

This one, Edibles From Eminence, may not be as electric as the last scan, but it’s got some good stuff. It’s also a smaller one too, so it won’t take as long to casually browse. Have fun reading if you decide to check it out!