The Free, Open Access Cookbook Index
A list of links to publicly available, open access, digitized historic cookbooks housed in collections around the world. Please email me if you come across broken links, so I can get them back up to date.
B
Boston Public Library: Cookbook Collection
Summary: A digitized selection of the Boston Public Library Cookbook Collection.
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Date Range: 1770s; 1780s; 1790s; 1800s; 1810s; 1820s; 1830s; 1840s; 1850s; 1860s; 1870s; 1880s; 1890s; 1900s; 1910s; 1920s; 1930s; 1940s;
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Key Words: Community Cookbook; The Boston Cooking School; American Cookery;
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Notable Titles: Includes many issues of The Boston Cooking School Magazine; The Victory Cookery Book (1918);
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Access Notes: This collection is hosted by the Internet Archive.
C
Summary: Canadiana is a project by the CRKN to expand access to documentation related to Canadian heritage.​
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Date Range: 1800s; 1810s; 1820s; 1830s; 1840s; 1850s; 1860s; 1870s; 1880s; 1890s; 1900s; 1910s; 1920s; 1930s; 1940s; 1950s; 1960s; 1970s; 1980s; 1990s;​
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Key Words: Canada; Community Cookbook; Brand Booklet;
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Access Notes: If the item in the search results says “No matching images found” that DOES NOT mean the book isn’t available when you click through. To download the full pdf, click the pdf icon that has a shadow. Some of the books have multiple catalog/bibliography pages before you get to the first page of the scanned pdf.
Summary: A project by Cornell University being undertaken in phases. Documents are added online in order of historical importance.
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Date Range: 1860s; 1870s; 1880s; 1890s; 1900s; 1910s; 1920s; 1930s; 1940s; 1950s; 1960s; 1970s; 1980s; 1990s;
Key Words: American Cookery; Nutrition; Health; Home Economics;
Access Notes: To find the books specific to cooking, click the “Subject” filter and scroll through until you find the right category. It doesn’t look like you can download the full pdfs, but you can print individual pages.
Summary: The stated project goal is to provide access to cookbooks not available elsewhere online.
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Date Range: 1820s; 1830s; 1840s; 1850s; 1860s; 1870s; 1880s; 1890s; 1900s; 1910s; 1920s; 1930s; 1940s;
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Key Words: Canada; Community Cookbook; Brand Booklet;
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Access Notes: Click the title to open the full pdf.
Summary: A very small sample of the Rare Books Collection housed at the Culinary Institute of America.
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Date Range: 1550s; 1890s; 1900s; 1910s;
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Notable Titles: One Hundred Ways of Cooking Eggs (1892)
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Access Notes: There are only a select few titles from the rare books collection available under “Highlights”. Click through to the article about each item, then click the “Read Online” link to redirect to the item stored in the Internet Archive.
D
Summary: While Duke University does not have a collection specific to cookbooks, they have multiple digital collections of advertisement materials that includes many recipe and brand pamphlets. The link takes you to the online repository and is filtered to cookbooks.
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Date Range: 1870s; 1880s; 1890s; 1900s; 1910s; 1920s; 1930s; 1940s; 1950s; 1960s; 1970s; 1980s; 1990s;
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Key Words: Brand Booklet; Advertisement; American;
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Notable Titles:
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Access Notes: The cookbooks in Duke’s collection are spread across multiple digital collections, as they are mostly in collections related to advertising.
E
Summary: An incredibly wide range of books about vintage cocktails. The sidebar has categories that are extremely easy to navigate.
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Date Range: 1700s; 1800s; 1820s; 1830s; 1840s; 1850s; 1860s; 1870s; 1880s; 1890s; 1900s; 1910s; 1920s; 1930s; 1940s; 1950s; 1960s;
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Key Words: Alcohol; Cocktail; Brand Booklet;
F
Summary:
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Access Notes: All documents are fully photographed and transcribed. I can’t find a way to download the images as one single pdf file, but each document has a “Reading Copy” pdf of the transcription available.
Framingham State University: Ruth Wakefield Cookbook Collection
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Access Notes: The pdfs are NOT full text, but include the TOC and Index for each book.
I
Summary:
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Access Notes: Most of the cookbooks are just excerpts, not full text. The ones that are full text the link to download is at the bottom of the page.
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Access Notes: To download the complete PDF, you will need to hit the printer icon, then select all. Otherwise, you will be downloading a single page at a time.
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Access Notes: I’ve tried to use the “Subject” filters to narrow the view down to just cookbooks, play around with the filters to see other material provided by Canadian Libraries.
Summary: An open access collection of over 1000 cookbooks covering a huge range of culinary interest.
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Date Range: 1800s-2020s
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Key Words: Community Cookbooks; Brand Pamphlets;​
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Notable Titles: Mastering the Art of French Cooking
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Access Notes: There are several community cookbooks in the collection. Search "community" to help pare down the results.
Summary:
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Access Notes: Each page is saved as an individual file, and you can print/save individual pages, but I can’t find a way to download it as a single pdf.
K
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Access Notes: This is an ongoing volunteer transcription project, and each manuscript page is saved as an individual image file for that purpose.
L
Summary:
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Date Range: 1860s; 1870s; 1880s; 1890s; 1900s; 1910s; 1920s;
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Key Words:
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Notable Titles:
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Access Notes: To view the collection, you will have to pick either a “Cookbooks by Place” or “Cookbooks Arranged by Time” subcategory. There isn’t a way to view the entire collection at once. At the bottom of the item listing, it will say “Available online from ____”. Click that link to access the PDF, and depending on the source how you download it will vary.
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Access Notes: Since this is an entire collection donated by an individual’s estate, there are some books present that aren’t cookbooks.
M
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N
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Access Notes:
New York Public Library Digital Collections: Cooking
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Access Notes: These are not all complete books, and some of the books are spread out across multiple files on the landing page. Items that have an icon in the bottom left have multiple pages. Each page is saved as an individual image file and I can’t find a way to download the book as a single pdf.
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Access Notes: These books are linked and listed on the right hand side of the library guide. Each page is saved as an individual image file and I can’t find a way to download the book as a single pdf.
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Access Notes: These are not all complete books, and some of the books are spread out across multiple files on the landing page. Items that have an icon in the bottom left have multiple pages. Each page is saved as an individual image file and I can’t find a way to download the book as a single pdf.
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R
Summary: This blog has not been updated since 2010. Each post focuses on a handwritten or typed recipe card, and is transcribed beneath.
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Key Words: Handwritten Recipe Cards;
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Access Notes: In the event the domain name expires, all posts are saved in The Wayback Machine.
S
Summary:
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Access Notes: The cookbook pages are saved as individual image files, and as far as I can tell there isn’t a way to download them as a whole pdf. Transcription is available if you click the “full text” icon above the file viewer.
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Access Notes:
Summary: Compiled by the “Open Prairie: Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange” project. Consists of community cookbooks specific to South Dakota.
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Access Notes: You will need to click the “Download” button to view the full pdf. This will open it in a separate browser window, not save it to your device.
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Date Range: 1900s; 1910s; 1920s; 1930s; 1940s; 1950s; 1960s;
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Access Notes:
Summary: These vintage pamphlets are available as easy to download PDFs from the company.
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Date Range:
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Key Words: Brand Pamphlets;
T
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Access Notes: To view the full item, click the link under “Files” (directly under the cover image). You can then save the PDF from there.
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Access Notes: Once you click on the item, click on the double arrow icon on the cover image to open the pdf viewer and download.
U
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Access Notes:
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Access Notes: Click on the cover image to view the full pdf. These are large files, so they may take a minute to open.
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Access Notes: There is a “PDF Download” hyperlink on the righthand side of the pdf viewer. There is a view counter on each page, and you can see even though this is a pretty impressive group of books the views are surprisingly low.
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Access Notes: There isn’t a way to filter for full-text or available online, but a few of the books are available through Hathi Trust (they may appear in other collections as well).
University of Iowa: Szathmary Culinary Manuscripts and Cookbooks;
Available with transcriptions HERE
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Access Notes: Each page of the document is saved as an individual image. As far as I can tell, you can’t download an entire book at once.
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Access Notes: Most of the digital cookbooks are available through Hathi Trust, and are available in other collections as well.
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Access Notes: To download the full pdf, click the little down arrow in a circle under the first page in the sidebar. The option “All Images (large PDF)” will be listed.
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Access Notes: Each page is an individual image file that you can download from the “Pages” tab, but I can’t find a way to download as a single pdf.
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Access Notes: Most of these are available from Hathi Trust, so may appear in other collections.
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Access Notes: Available directly in catalog and separate from the larger culinary collection.
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Access Notes: This is an aggregate list that links to various cookbooks around the internet, so depending on the host the way you download the pdf will vary. You can browse related and broader terms in the sidebar.
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Access Notes: Once you click through to an item, the download button is the small icon on the top right, directly under the item title.
Summary: These books are in Spanish.
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Access Notes: To download the full pdf, click on an item. In the sidebar with the page numbers, scroll all the way to the bottom and click “PDF”. Then, click the download icon at the top right above the sidebar and select “This Item”. These files are on the larger side and will take awhile to download.
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Access Notes: Once you click through to an item, you can hit the printer icon on the right directly under the item title to open the full pdf for download.
V
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Access Notes: Click the book title to open the pdf. The files on this site are on the larger side, so they take a minute to open.
W
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Access Notes: You will need to download the pdf to view it.
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Y
Summary: This blog has not been updated since 2019. Each post focuses on a handwritten or typed recipe card, providing historical context and possible origins.
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Date Range:
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Key Words: Handwritten Recipe Cards;
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Access Notes: If the domain name expires, all posts are available in The Wayback Machine.
Misc.
These are links to one-off books that have been made available by individuals or as a part of a cookbook adjacent project. They are listed in alphabetical order by title.
300 Choice Recipes (1892): Made available by the Denver Public Library
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Florida Seafood Cookery (1944): Made available through the University of West Florida PALMM Collection
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How We Cook in Colorado: Choice Recipes (1907): Made available by the Denver Public Library
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Kosher Cooking School: Rules for Housekeepers (1898): Made available by the Wisconsin Historical Society as part of the Lizzie Black Kander Papers. Click the little printer icon and select “All” to view and download the full pdf.
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Pensacola Souvenir Cook Book (1900): Made available through the University of West Florida PALMM Collection
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What’s Cooking at Columbia (1943): Made available by Columbia University’s newspaper for an article.