Accession No. RARE.2025.0054: Antoinette Koolemans-Beynen, 2024 September
[identification of item], Handwritten Cookbook Likely Compiled Near Rotterdam, Netherlands, SPEC.RARE.MMS.0408, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Ohio State University
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Processed by: Casey Blackmore, 2025 June; Finding aid written by: Casey Blackmore, 2025 June
Cookbooks are books of cooking directions and recipes with step-by-step directions and lists of ingredients for preparing food. Recipes and cookbooks have been used throughout history, but became more popular in the 16th and 17th centuries, after the invention of the printing press. They have been written for many centuries for food dishes as well as cosmetics and medicinal cures, but the compilation of recipes into cookbooks and recipe books became popular in 17th century English homes when England’s literacy rate among women improved. Recipe books could be inherited from ancestors (and passed on to descendants) and individual recipes could be traded and borrowed to be copied down into one’s own personal notebook for use.
The Wannée cookbook, published in 1910 for the Amsterdam Domestic Science School, is considered the definitive text on Dutch cusinie and cooking. The recipes in the book were compiled by Cornelia Wannée, the director of the school. Earilier cookbooks, such as
The Handwritten Cookbook Likely Compiled Near Rotterdam, Netherlands contains a bound cookbook of recipes compiled by an unknown individual, likely from the Rotterdam area of the Netherlands. An advertising tag for a store in Rotterdam is found on the interior back cover of the book, suggesting location of the book's creator. The recipes found in the book were handwritten and include formulas for puddings, savory dishes liked braised meat, and desserts using traditional Dutch ingredients such as apples, potatoes, and herring. The recipes are ordered alphabetically in the book with dividers before each letter. Material is dated circa 1901-1918.