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One of my readers has sent some comments via email that he/she was unable to post because of a browser conflict. I will be posting them to this post as they may provide some additional books worth taking a look at for your collection. The reader is: C.Y./J.E. CrippsHere is the first note:There’s no reason especially you should just take my word for this, but I’ve noticed several books I did or didn’t buy at library sales and the like that have risen in price:1. Roy Andries de Groot, The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth.2. Patience Gray, Honey from A Weed.3. Colman Andrews Catalan Cuisine 4. Madeleine Kamman’s Savoie. (Mentioned a year ago or more on that one NYT article)

Posted by Ruben on November 01, 2008

Another comment from C.Y/J.E. Cripps:1. The Rosso and Lukens Silver Palate ones, in good condition.The original versions not the "25th" anniversary edition.They never really appealed to me. But I've seen so many ppl mentioning them (this was my mother's special book, or "I cooked almost everything in this" or " this is the one I want on your list of 50") that it looks like it's a keeper in the cultural artifact sense.2. Grace Young's Breath of a Wok and Wisdom of the ChineseKitchen both I think still in print. The first gets raves from people who know about these things. The second has lots of fans who find their "home cooking" in it.Yes, everyone knows about these. They might be like Simone Beck's Simca's Cuisine, easy to find. Then again maybe not.3. Margaret Rudkin's Pepperidge Farm Cookbook. This is abig beautiful book with colored illustrations and remisinscencesof New York in the early 20th Century and visits to Ireland. They don't make them like this now. Even should book replication be somehow easy, it won't look the same. I've seen more thanone copy in local stores, at about $12.00 (remember that's NYCretail store prices, used books.) The shipping on this will add to any online price.People mention this one in the same threads as the PatienceGray Honey From A Weed which the elite rediscovered a few yearsback and the hardcover has gone up quite a bit.4. Charlie Trotter Gourmet Cooking for Dummies. This gets pained looks from the elite (I know this from footnote in some book in the library.) It's a cultural note fromthe late 1990s. I almost bought it but I don't really cook much.5. This one's already gone up. Buwei Yang Chao's How to Cook and Eat in Chinese. This is mentioned in Rombauer and Becker's Joy of Cooking, in the editionsafter the original publicaton (1945) of H2C&EIC.The edition one wants is the 1963 one (I think that's the last) with the little exchange in the footnotes between Mr. and Mrs. Yang (He was a noted linguist,andthe book is remembered by some because it shows what it takes to translate between English and Chinese in a new area.) This was pretty much the very first bookin Chinese cooking in the USA.A big name in food writing mentioned this some years back,then later wondered why people bought earlier editions ofbooks and not the later ones that showed more thought byauthors. I think she meant this one. Many online sellershave hopes that the 1945 one will bring big prices (well,like $75 to $100) and the 1963 seems to be rising too. There's a fairly decent paperback edition.This book needs to be brought out in facsmile. (1963 edition)There's lots of ppl who never could have bought it then bc they weren't alive then. That wouldn't be collectible, but it doesn't matter to me; I'm more interested in the looks and reading them.BTW there's a facsimile of the very first Rombauer only Joy of Cooking for sale. That's not collectible. Don't mistake it for the real thing.

Posted by Ruben on November 01, 2008