The cordon bleu cook may be admired extravagantly by her (or his) peers, but it's the home cook who can put beautifully prepared simple food on the table night after night who is most loved. Betty Wason

{HISTORY}

When most people hear the name Betty associated with a vintage cookbook, the first person they usually think of is Betty Crocker. But there was another equally accomplished Betty cooking her way through the 20th century too. This woman was Betty Wason, a talented war correspondent and broadcast journalist in the 1930's and 1940's who turned to cookbook writing after experiencing gender discrimination in her professional journalism career. 

A world traveler with a thirsty curiosity, Betty's approach to cooking, writing and recipe compiling was always focused on authenticity, practicality, and generous, joyful hospitality. Highly researched and thoroughly tested, she loved to make good food with good ingredients for good people.  She understood the value of cooking with fresh herbs, spices and wine, the importance of setting an engaging table, and the helpfulness of learning basic cooking principles in order to tackle all types of recipes. Likewise, she knew that meal prep could be a challenge for the beginner and an adventure for the experienced and wrote her book to accommodate both viewpoints. She also recognized the value of heirloom recipes. These passed down secrets, tips, and tricks that had been fine-tuned over many years and many generations were meticulously collected in her travels around the world and tested in her own home kitchen.

Publishing over 15 cookbooks throughout her life, this one, simply titled The Everything Cookbook was published in 1970. True to its name, it contains over 900 pages of recipes, stories, techniques, and preparation guides to make the whole entire process of home cooking from start to finish, an exciting, pleasurable, and confident experience. 

{SPECIAL FEATURES}

- 1970 unstated First Edition

- 909 pages including detailed index

- Contains a purple cloth ribbon marker

- Illustrated throughout with black and white line drawings by Leonard Cascioli

-  Like all big one-stop-shop cooking bibles, this one contains recipes for all meals of the day, including regional specialties from around the world and an entire chapter (over 140 pages!) on wine, beer, and cocktails. It even contains an array of interesting charts not often found in all cookbooks. For example, there is a salting chart, a pan size chart, meat cut diagrams, can size measurements and table setting diagrams to help eliminate confusion.

- Technically five books in one, this cookbook is broken down into five parts... (1) The ABC's of Food Prep (2) Menu Planning and Weight Control (3) Recipes (4) Guide to Entertaining (5) All About Wines and Spirits 

 {CONDITION}

In lovely vintage condition. There is some minor fraying to front and back overboard edges and a de random cooking spots on some pages (most noticeably the bottom spine - please see photo). There are two Raggedy Ann stamps inside the front and back cover. All interior pages are bright and clean. 

{SIZE}

Measures 9.5" inches (length) x 6.5" inches (width) x 2.5" inches (thickness) and weighs over 3.5lbs.

{LEARN MORE ABOUT BETTY!}

We love Betty Wason so much here in the Vintage Kitchen, we wrote a blog post about her adventurous writing career here.