1,000 Cookbooks and Counting 

Sara Memmott’s home is lined with dozens of bookshelves where she keeps nearly 1,000 cookbooks! After decades of working as a special collections librarian, the cookbooks are, of course, carefully grouped by topic. Sara admits that she’s not a great cook, but she has other reasons for collecting cookbooks. 

“I love books, I love history, and cooking brings people together,” Sara said. 

Sara’s mother used to laugh at her and say, “You only need four cookbooks. As long as one of them is by Betty Crocker, you can make all the meals you need.” Her mother didn’t realize that Sara had an unusual set of friends. 

“I had a good friend who taught English Literature. She asked me what foods were eaten during the era of Chaucer, a poet from the 1300s,” Sara said. “I found my Metropolitan Museum cookbook of recipes from the Elizabethan Period to Richard the 2nd, and it was just what she needed for her class.” 

Another friend asked Sara what French foods would have been served to Madame Bovary. Sara turned to her copy of Literary Gourmet: Menus from Masterpieces to save the day. 

“If I’m having a get-together on, say, Saint Patrick’s Day, I look through my Irish cookbooks to find an appropriate recipe. My friends know that I might spring a cooking experiment on them,” Sara said with a laugh. “I once made a mushroom souffle that was so beautiful, the guy I made it for proposed! I didn’t say yes, but it’s fun to remember.” 

Sara’s collection includes many used and out-of-print editions, but she also buys new ones when she travels, calling them “useful souvenirs.” Her shelves feature a wide variety of cookbooks, including state and Presidential titles, as well as volumes focused on Asian cuisine, Native American traditions, holidays, and, most recently, healthy eating. 

Sara finds it interesting to read the cookbooks, regardless of whether she tries the recipes. The history about how cooking has changed over time intrigues her, from unheard-of ingredients to the curious ways that cooks described measurements. 

“Early cookbooks might suggest scooping butter the size of a walnut or a hen’s egg” Sara said. “I like looking at the notations made by previous owners about their recipe adjustments. It’s the old-fashioned handwriting and the splatters that make them special.” 

At one point, Sara wanted to be a Civil War reenactor. She gathered cookbooks from the era, including a pre-Civil War cookbook from 1861. “That cookbook has notes written in the front by the first owner, who was obviously on board a ship. He was trying to stop the blockade runners during the war, and he mentions the names of the ships they captured,” Sara said. 

A peculiar cookbook experience in Sara’s life occurred years ago when she still lived in Kansas. Her father visited estate sales to appraise and price books. One day he brought Sara a used cookbook and said, “This cookbook belongs to you.” It was from Waverly, Iowa, where Sara’s grandmother grew up. 

“Sure enough, a recipe was written inside the book in my grandmother’s handwriting!” Sara said. “I assume she loaned the cookbook to someone, and they died before returning it. Somehow it made its way from Iowa to Kansas. Thank goodness Daddy found it. It’s an ugly book, but it’s so precious to me.” 

For Sara, cooking recipes perfectly is not the end goal. Her cookbooks reveal personal stories and notations about history, and they provide an avenue for gathering friends together. “I guess you could say that I collect cookbooks—because they are about people,” Sara said.