Changes and cookbooks.....

One of the things I like to buy are old cookbooks.  I find them interesting not only because of the recipies (calfs head with brain sauce anyone??)  but also for the insight into how things were in the past not only concerning food, but ideas on how to live.  I am struck again and again by how much things have changed in only the last century in the way we live our everyday lives. (They also look great!)

Recently I found this cookbook from 1909, not so very long ago really (considering this cookbook still excisting which is from 1390!! Maybe not the worlds oldest, but old enough.)  but major changes have occured. One of the things which has changed our lives and our food a great deal is the introduction of electricity and all the new appliances this brought, in many swedish homes cookers went from wood directly to electricity as gas was never widespread.  I have in my collection a delightful guide to using your electric cooker from about the 1950´s.  In terms of my own family, my dad was born 1936, his mum and grandma would have found the way we do things today bevildering to say the least.  A bit of random rambling, but something I am sure to come back to at some point.

Feel free to comment and share any thoughts on changing times, old cookbooks, or anything else!