Vintage–and occasionally–antique novelty cookbooks. That is, old cookbooks based on jokes, cultural stereotypes, cartoons. Or cookbooks aimed at one gender, usually male, sometimes gay. Or cookbooks with unusual shapes or sizes. Or cookbooks with unusual leather or wooden covers. Or cookbooks especially emblematic of their times. These cookbooks can make excellent gifts. But be sure you know the person you are gifting well!
Right now, we have Green Beret Gourmet: A Cookbook for Advisors, 1983; Helen Gurley Brown’s Single Girl’s Cookbook, 1969; Tired Wolf and the Recipes He Pursued, 1985, Gordon R. Nelson; 1970; Tumbleweed Gourmet: Cooking with Wild Southwestern Plants, 1987; Have Cookbook Will Marry by Ruth Chier Rosen, 1957; Big Boy Barbecue Book, Tested Recipe Institute, 1956, 1963; Rambling Into Romantic Candy Antiquity, Constantine G. Pulakos, 1965, 1967; Cyrano de Casserole: Nosegay of Fragrant Casserole Recipes, 1955, Ruth Chier Rosen; Ancestral Recipes of Shen Mei Lon, 1954, Ruth Chier Rosen; Fabulous Fondues, Peter Pauper Press Book, 1970; Husband’s Cookbook, Mike McGrady, 1979; New Art of Modern Cooking, 1940, General Electric.
