Collecting Culinaria

Merrill Distad is Associate University Librarian for Research & Special Collections Services at the University of Alberta. Caroline Lieffers is a Reference and Collections Assistant at the University of Alberta's John W. Scott Health Sciences Library.

"Collecting Culinaria is a tribute to an extraordinary trove of historic cookbooks collected by Linda Distad, a University of Alberta librarian who died in 2012. Distad had a mania for heritage recipes; her collection ran to more than 3,000 titles, including the first English-language cookbook published in Canada, The Cook Not Mad, circa 1830.... Recipes date from Roman times, but Culinaria credits an English homemaker, Isabella Beeton, as author of the 'culinary and household management touchstone' that started the whole ball rolling in 1859. Mrs. Beeton’s Book Of Household Management ran to 1,112 pages of recipes, cleaning tips and advice.... Collecting Culinaria is spectacularly illustrated with photos and artwork." [Full review at http://bit.ly/1Li7qFE]