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Posted by: Jennifer Harbster
A look at a selection of cookbooks the Library of Congress digitized in 2025, including – a couple of community cookbooks, a 1928 Girl Scout camp and trail guide, an early Chinese-American recipe book and a book on candy-making.
Posted in: Cookbooks and Food, Science
Posted by: Jennifer Harbster
Prior to 1930’s, the chocolate chip cookie, we know and love today, did not exist. The Library of Congress has a copy of Ruth Wakefield’s 1938 “Toll House Tried and True Recipes” (New York, M. Barrows and Company) that contains what food historians consider the first published chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Posted in: Cookbooks and Food, Science
Posted by: Jennifer Harbster
In trying to make distinct and unique names, the scientific world relies on a system of binomial nomenclature, or two-word names, to bring order and standardization to the naming of species. Still, even in this restrictive world, scientists have found many opportunities for fun. If anyone could take this appearance-of-nonsense and use it to full effect, it would be artist and poet Edward Lear, the grandfather of nonsense. In several of his nonsense books, he created charming sketches of made-up plants, with matching scientific names that were every bit as silly as the drawings.