The Open Access Cookbook Index
A List of Links to Publicly Available, Digitized Historic Cookbooks
EDITED: The up-to-date version of this list has been migrated to The Recipe Graveyard website! All future updates will be there.
There are thousands of cookbooks available through library collections, private collections, and other assorted projects across the Internet. However, tracking them down and finding what you’re looking for can be a pain. There are a few resources across the web that have tried to compile lists like this, but I found them difficult to navigate and understand what was in each collection before clicking through. Below I have compiled free, publicly accessible, full-text, digitized collections I have come across thus far, and I will continue adding to the list as I find more.
Collection owners are listed in alphabetical order, and you can navigate to a section using the hyperlinks below. You can also hit Ctrl+F (PC) or Command+F (Mac) to search for key words. Each listing has an approximate date range and key words associated with it, as well as any notable titles called out. Common keywords include states, countries, regions, community cookbook, manuscript, & brand pamphlet.
(I am aware that each section isn’t fully filled out yet, but I will be working on that throughout next week. Check back in for periodic updates!)
If you notice a broken link, please leave a comment so I can fix it!
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Misc.
B
Boston Public Library: Cookbook Collection
Summary: A digitized selection of the Boston Public Library Cookbook Collection.
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles: Includes many issues of The Boston Cooking School Magazine.
Access Notes: This collection is hosted by the Internet Archive.
C
Canadian Research Knowledge Network: Canadiana
Summary: Canadiana is a project by the CRKN to expand access to documentation related to Canadian heritage.
Date Range: 1800s; 1810s; 1820s; 1830s; 1840s; 1850s; 1860s; 1870s; 1880s; 1890s; 1900s; 1910s; 1920s; 1930s; 1940s; 1950s; 1960s; 1970s; 1980s; 1990s;
Key Words: Canada; Community Cookbook; Brand Booklet;
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.
Cornell University: Home Economics Archive: Research, Tradition and History (HEARTH)
Summary: A project by Cornell University being undertaken in phases. Documents are added online in order of historical importance.
Date Range: 1860s; 1870s; 1880s; 1890s; 1900s; 1910s; 1920s; 1930s; 1940s; 1950s; 1960s; 1970s; 1980s; 1990s;
Key Words:
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.
Culinary Historians of Canada: Canadian Cookbooks Online
Summary: The stated project goal is to provide access to cookbooks not available elsewhere online.
Date Range: 1820s; 1830s; 1840s; 1850s; 1860s; 1870s; 1880s; 1890s; 1900s; 1910s; 1920s; 1930s; 1940s;
Key Words: Canada; Community Cookbook; Brand Booklet;
Access Notes: Click the title to open the full pdf.
Culinary Institute of America: Conrad N. Hilton Library Archives and Special Collections
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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
Duke University: Repository Collections & Archives
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
Access Notes: The cookbooks in Duke’s collection are spread across multiple digital collections, as they are mostly in collections related to advertising.
E
Exposition Universelle des Vins et Spiritueux: Vintage Cocktail Books
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
F
Feast Afrique: Digital Library
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
Folger Shakespeare Library: Recipe Books
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
Access Notes: The pdfs are NOT full text, but include the TOC and Index for each book.
I
Indian Community Cookbook Project: Archives
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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.
Indiana University - Indianapolis: Service Through Sponge Cake
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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.
Internet Archive: Canadian Libraries
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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.
Iowa State University: Cookbook Collection
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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
Kansas State University: Manuscript Cookbooks
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
Access Notes: This is an ongoing volunteer transcription project, and each manuscript page is saved as an individual image file for that purpose.
L
Library of Congress: Community Cookbooks: An Online Collection
Summary:
Date Range: 1860-1929
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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.
Library of Congress: Katherine Golden Bitting Collection on Gastronomy
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
Access Notes: Since this is an entire collection donated by an individual’s estate, there are some books present that aren’t cookbooks.
M
Michigan State University: Feeding America: Historic American Cookbooks
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
Michigan State University: Feeding Michigan
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
Michigan State University: Little Cookbooks Collection
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
N
New York Public Library: Jewish Cookbooks
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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.
S
Scranton Public Library: Community and Church Cookbooks from Northeastern PA
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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.
South Dakota State University: South Dakota Community Cookbook Collection
Summary: Compiled by the “Open Prairie: Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange” project. Consists of community cookbooks specific to South Dakota.
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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.
Stony Brook University: Chinese Culinary History
Summary:
Date Range: 1905-1968
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
T
Texas Tech University: Historical Cookbooks
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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.
Texas Woman’s University: Culinary Collection
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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
University of California - San Diego: American Institute of Wine & Food Culinary Collection
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
Access Notes: Click on the cover image to view the full pdf. These are large files, so they may take a minute to open.
University of the Fraser Valley: Newman Western Canadian Cookbook Collection
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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.
University of Iowa: Szathmary Culinary Manuscripts and Cookbooks; Available with transcriptions HERE
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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.
University of Michigan: Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
Access Notes: Most of the digital cookbooks are available through Hathi Trust, and are available in other collections as well.
University of Minnesota: Doris S. Kirschner Cookbook Collection
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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.
University of North Carolina - Greensboro: Paul and Janice Hessling Home Economics Pamphlets Collection
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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.
University of Pennsylvania: The Online Books Page
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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.
University of Southern Mississippi: Cookbooks
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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.
University of Texas - San Antonio: Mexican Cookbook Collection
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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.
University of Wisconsin - Madison: Carson Gulley Cookbook Collection
Summary:
Date Range: 1940-1956
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
Access Notes:
University of Wisconsin - Madison: Playing House: Homemaking for Children
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
Access Notes:
University of Wisconsin - Madison: Recipe for Victory: Food and Cooking in Wartime
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
Access Notes:
Utah State University: Cookery and Culture Digital Collection
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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
Virginia Tech: Culinary History Collection
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
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
Wellcome Collection: Recipe Books
Summary:
Date Range:
Key Words:
Notable Titles:
Access Notes: You will need to download the pdf to view it.
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.
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.
What’s Cooking at Columbia (1943): Made available by Columbia University’s newspaper for an article.
Ohhhhhhh nooooooo. I'm doomed! My antique cookbook addition is going into overdose.
Thank you for sharing. It's a real gem for anyone into food recipes and history!