Hotel St. Francis Cook Book, 1919

Hotel St. Francis Cook Book, 1919: Some hotel cookbooks, or restaurant cookbooks, or chefs’ cookbooks, grow long on the author’s memoirs, yet are short on recipes. Not this one! From page one through page 400, all are packed with recipes and menus. There’s not a spot of gossip, nor a single allusion to landscape! The Hotel St. Francis Cook Book, by Victor Hirtzler, once chef of the Hotel St. Francis, San Francisco. Published by The Hotel Monthly Press, John Willy, Inc., Chicago, 1919.

Hotel St. Francis Cook Book is a menu cookbook; that is, the recipes are arranged in menus, a menu with recipes for each day of the year. Here is January 1: The most amazing thing about these menus, to me, is the fact that Hirtzler manages to fit each and every one on just one page!

One great antique recipe from the Hotel St. Francis? Try Canape St. Francis.

I’ve started posting one great recipe from the most notable cookbooks in our huge inventory of antique, vintage, and rare cookbooks, along with some historical background, to give you some flavor (bad pun) from the cookbooks.  Just for fun and our mutual education!  If your sister, your mother, your friend, or your colleague asks you where you found this antique first edition cookbook, please tell him or her: VintageCookbook.com! To properly display your antique cookbook collection, you might want to visit our sister site, VintageTablecloths.com!