Blue Grass Cook Book First Edition - Alvin Langdon Coburn - Bauman Rare Books

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Blue Grass Cook Book

Alvin Langdon COBURN | Minnie C. FOX

Item#: 115947 We're sorry, this item has been sold

Blue Grass Cook Book

Blue Grass Cook Book

Blue Grass Cook Book

WITH 11 PHOTOGRAPHS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN COOKS BY ALVIN LANGDON COBURN

FOX, Minnie C., compiler, and COBURN, Alvin Langdon, photographer. The Blue Grass Cook Book. New York: Fox, Duffield, 1904. Octavo, original blue-gray cloth.

First edition of this ode to the early 20th-century Kentucky kitchen, featuring dozens of traditional Blue Grass recipes, with one illustrated plate of corn dodgers and biscuits and 11 photographic plates of African-American cooks by acclaimed photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn.

This unusual Kentucky cookbook from the turn of the 20th century represents the first time African-American cooks were explicitly credited with their contributions to Southern cuisine. "Many of these [recipes] must be veritable heirlooms, precious souvenirs of the past, the originals of which were in faded ink, just as they were inscribed by loving hands of mothers and grandmothers" (contemporary review, New York Times). "This century-old treasure of Southern cooking attests to the rich contribution of African Americans to a storied cuisine. Its author, Minnie Fox, and her author brother, who wrote the introduction, were probably the first Southern whites ever to acknowledge the role of black culinary genius" (Sidney W. Mintz). Poised at a crucial turning point in the history of photography, representing the "transition from pictorialism to modernism, from 19th- to 20th-century photography," the work of Alvin Langdon Coburn illuminates "the concern of the more advanced pictorialist with 'modern' subjects… a shift in attitude that triggered the final push towards photographic modernism" (Parr & Badger I:74). Cagle & Stafford 270. Contemporary ink owner signature.

A few spots of soiling to interior, front inner paper hinge split, light wear and soiling to cloth, mild toning to spine. An extremely good copy.

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Aquatint Copperplate process by which the plate is “bitten” by exposure to acid. By changing the areas of the plate that are exposed and the length of time the plate is submerged in the acid bath, the engraver can obtain fine and varying shades of gray that closely resemble watercolor washes. Although the name contains the word “tint”, this is a black-and-white printing process; aquatint plates can often be hand colored, however.
Armorial Used to describe a binding bearing the coat of arms of the original owner, or with bookplates incorporating the owner’s arms.
Association Copy copy that belonged to someone connected with the author or the contents of a book.
Boards Hard front and rear covers of a bound book which are covered in cloth, leather or paper. “Original boards” refers to cardboard-like front and back boards, from about 1700 to 1840, used as temporary protection for books before their purchasers would have them bound. Of particular value to collectors as evidence of a very early form of the book.
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Broadside Sheet printed on one side, typically for public display, usually larger than folio size (a folio being a broadside-size sheet printed on both sides and folded once, to make four pages).
Calf Binding material made from cowhide—versatile, durable, usually tan or brown in color, of smooth texture with no or little apparent grain. Readily marbled (“tree calf”), mottled, diced, colored, polished, tooled in gilt or blind, even scented (known as “russia”). Reverse calf, with a distinctive suede-like texture, is occasionally used.
Chromolithograph Lithograph printed in colors, typically three or more.
Collation Process by which the contents of a book are inspected for completeness, checking against internal evidence, the table of contents and/or plate list, and reference works. Also a shorthand bibliographical description of a book’s composition by its leaves and signatures, rather than its pages. A-C, for example, would indicate a quarto volume composed of three signatures or gatherings of eight pages each for a total of 24 pages.
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Doublure Pastedowns made not of paper but of leather, for decorative purposes.
Duodecimo (12MO) Smaller than an octavo, typically less than six inches tall; smaller formats, such as 24mo and 32mo, are uncommon.
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Foxing Light brown spots that naturally appear on some papers due to oxidation as they age.
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Half Title Leaf preceding the title page that bears the book’s title, originally used to identify the unbound text block. The book’s binder would often remove and discard the half title at the time of binding. Remaining half-titles are therefore of interest to collectors.
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Marginalia Handwritten notes made in the margins by a previous owner.
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Period-Style binding executed with materials, tools and techniques to approximate the look of a contemporary binding from the period of the book’s publication. The term implies that the binding is modern, or recent, unless otherwise specified.
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Wood-Engraving Engraving made with the graver or burin on the cross-section of a piece of boxwood; the harder wood and finer tools allow for more delicate, finely detailed images, while the block can still be set in the page alongside text and printed on the same stock as the text. While much older, wood engravings enjoyed an important renaissance in the late eighteenth century through Thomas Bewick and continued in popularity thorugh the nineteenth century.
Wormhole Tiny pinhole-sized trails left by bookworms as they eat through a text block. Much more common in older books printed on handmade papers with a high rag content than in books printed on manufactured papers made from wood pulp with a higher acidic content.
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