Collecting Cookbooks - What to Collect

Cookbook collecting is a popular and rewarding hobby.  Book publishers introduce literally thousands of new cookbooks each year, making it difficult for the average collector or cook to have one of everything.

In order to narrow the scope of their collections, many cookbook collectors choose to collect only certain types of cook books. 

Some examples of the different types of cookbooks that could be collected are:

• Advertising Cookbooks
• General Purpose Cookbooks
• Major Cookbook Publishers
• Regional
• Fund-Raiser
• Community
• Specific Ingredients
• Series
• Health, Diet and Nutrition 
• Herbal
• Cooking Magazines
• Cooking Contests
• Recipe Cards
• International
• Ethnic
• First Editions
• Famous Authors and Chefs
• Special Techniques
• Kitchen Appliances
• Restaurants or Famous Places
• Foreign Publishers
• Historical

Many of the old cookbooks have been used as frequently as any other tool in the kitchen, so they are not always found in pristine condition.  Condition and scarcity determine the price in most cases, with higher prices for the scarcer and nicer copies.  Some cooks find a correlation between the amount of use the book has received and the popularity of the recipes contained within--the more stains, the better the recipes!

Do you have a special cookbook collection?  Email and tell us about your collection!