Table of Contents 

Repository

UNC Asheville Special Collections and University Archives

Title

Pamela C. Allison Cookbook Collection

ID

M2016-01

Date [inclusive]

1932-2015

Extent

8 Linear feet

Description note

The collection contains books and pamphlets.

Location note

Placeholder

Language

Regional cookbooks and community cookbooks are located in the Special Collections Reading Room. Commercial food and appliance cookbooks are located in Special Collections closed stacks, Row 4, Section 5.

Abstract

abstract

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Biographical Note

A biographical note provided by the donor:

Dr. Pam Allison, Professor Emerita, received her B.S. in Physical Education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, her M.A.T. in teaching from UNC-Chapel Hill, and returned to UNC-Greensboro for her Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction in Physical Education. She began her career teaching elementary school physical education, grades 1-6, in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and retired from Bowling Green State University where she taught freshmen through graduate students in the School of Human Movement, Sport, and Leisure Studies for 20 years. She has authored and edited two books and several articles on physical education teacher education, and living with multiple sclerosis. She developed an interest in cooking while teaching, but did not become interested in collecting cookbooks until she retired.

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Scope and Contents

The Pamela C. Allison Cookbook Collection contains over 700 community and commercially published cookbooks that document recipes, cooking, and foodways in the Southern Appalachians, North Carolina, and the American South. In addition, the collection includes nearly 200 commercial food and kitchen appliance company cookbooks as well as a small collection of historic cookbooks and books on cookbook collecting. The main sections of the collection are outlined below.

Commercially published cookbooks from Southern Appalachia, North Carolina, and the South include over 300 volumes published by small regional publishers and larger national publishing houses. Some books discuss regional cooking in such areas as the Great Smokies, the Virginia Blue Ridge, or South Carolina’s Low Country, others look at particular foods or cooking styles such as barbecue, seafood, grits, or biscuits, while some explore offerings and recipes from restaurants such as Crook’s Corner or Tupelo Honey. Some feature noted Southerners such as author Dori Sanders writing about cooking, while others take a more general approach and examine Southern or Appalachian cooking in broader regional terms.

The nearly 350 community cookbooks in the collection were produced by such community organizations such as churches, women’s clubs, garden clubs, extension services, arts councils, and school groups. Many were published to sell as fundraisers, and many are spiral bound. Their distinction comes from the fact that recipes are supplied by members of the community and reflect individual and community culinary tastes, practices, and influences.

The commercial food and kitchen appliance company cookbooks include nearly 200 pamphlets, brochures, booklets, books, and handbooks produced by food, cookware, and kitchen appliance manufacturers. Included are materials from such commercial food manufacturers as Borden’s, Jell-O, and Spry and kitchen appliance manufacturers as Sunbeam, Hotpoint, and Calphalon. A complete list of these cookbooks can be found in the Collection Inventory below.

The commercially published cookbooks and the community cookbooks are cataloged in the library’s online catalog and are shelved in the Pamela C. Allison Cookbook Collection shelves in the Special Collections Reading Room. The catalog listing is available at this link.

The collection also contains 21 community cookbooks from states outside of the South, mostly Ohio and Pennsylvania. These are in Box 8 of the Collection Inventory listed below.

Additionally, there are a few dozen historical cookbooks, books on cookbook collecting, and several Jewish cookbooks. These appear in the library’s online catalog and are shelved in the Special Collections Reading Room.

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Administrative Information

Publication Information

UNC Asheville Special Collections and University Archives
Ramsey Library
CPO # 1500
One University Heights
Asheville, North Carolina
28804-8504
828.251.6645
speccoll@unca.edu

Access note

The collection is open for research.

Custodial History

The collection was donated by Dr. Pamela C. Allison in 2015. Dr. Allison contacted UNC Asheville Professor Dr. Erica Locklear in the Spring of 2015, and Dr. Locklear and Head of Special Collections Gene Hyde visited Dr. Allison during the summer to view the collection. The collection was donated to Special Collections in the summer of 2015 and physically transferred to Ramsey Library in late summer – early fall 2015.

Special Collections asked Dr. Allison if she would write about her personal interest in collecting cookbooks and she provided the the following text:

Developing My Cookbook Collection By Pamela C. Allison

My cookbook collection is rooted in three seemingly unrelated interests—good food, reading, and research.

My interest in good food began in my grandmother’s kitchen. She was the quintessential Southern cook. She cooked her green beans, freshly snapped, with a piece of fatback in a Club Aluminum pot, and she made her biscuits with buttermilk and lard, baking them on a dark pan that had to be at least 50 years old. She would send some of her biscuits home with me when the family visited, but they seldom made it out of her driveway (which, by the way, was only 20 feet long). As far as I know, my grandmother did not cook from recipes, and I do not recall seeing a cookbook in her house. She cooked good food from the heart, and I loved the food she prepared.

My interest in reading was encouraged by my parents. We always had books in the house. Thankfully, my elementary school library had lots of sports books, every one of which I read, and my parents would take me to the local library so I could get even more sports books to read. Eventually, I broadened my reading interests, or better said, I was forced to broaden my reading interests to include those required and recommended in my undergraduate and graduate classes. During my academic career, however, no class I took had a cookbook on the required or recommended reading lists. When I began collecting cookbooks, I did so as much to read them as to cook from the recipes.

My interest in research became focused during graduate school and continued throughout my teaching career. When I retired, however, my love of research did not stop. From the beginning, researching cookbooks seemed like an important outcome of having a collection. As a retiree of many years now, my best research strategy is to let others do the work. I prefer to focus to cooking and eating good food.

I cannot say when I began collecting cookbooks, only that collecting evolved from an obsession to own every cookbook printed. I read that after the Bible, more cookbooks are printed than any other type of book. I realized then that I had made a big rookie mistake—not focusing my collection. Too late, I started collecting books on collecting cookbooks, and belatedly decided my focus would be on Southern cooking, particularly Southern charity cookbooks. I was delighted to find Dr. Erica Locklear was interested in researching culture through the cookbook literature, and Gene Hyde was interested in receiving my collected cookbooks. I am pleased to know that my collection housed at UNC-Asheville will be a place that can aid scholars in their work and broaden their networks for research on cookbooks.

Accruals note

Additional accruals are expected.

Processing Information

The collection was processed by Gene Hyde with assistance from Colin Reeve, Markia Brooks, and Diane Lanctot. Books were cataloged by Barb Svenson.

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Collection Inventory

Box 1: Commercial food and appliance manufacturer cookbooks

• Acme Flour, The Best Yet Cook Book, d. 1907
• Amaretto di Saronno, Cook with Love, d. 1981
• Arm & Hammer, Good Things to Eat, d. 1933
• Arm & Hammer, New Fashioned Old Fashioned Recipes, d. 1953
• Arm & Hammer, Successful Baking for Flavor and Texture, d. 1937
• Baker’s Chocolate, Best Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes, d. 1932
• Ball, Blue Book: The Guide to Home Canning and Freezing, d. 1988
• Ball, Freezer Book, d. 1973
• Ball, Serve & Preserve Cookbook
• Bertolli, The Bertolli Olive Oil Handbook
• Betty Crocker, Betty Crocker’s Bisquick Cook Book, d. 1956
• Betty Crocker, Betty Crocker’s Bisquick Party Book, d. 1957
• Betty Crocker, Casseroles Recipe Cards, d. 2009
• Betty Crocker, International Cooking Made Easy, d. 1996
• Betty Crocker, On the Grill
• Betty Crocker, Your Share: How to Prepare Appetizing, Healthful Meals with Foods Available Today, d. 1943
• Bi-Lo, Lifestyle Magazine, d. 1999
• Boar’s Head, Classic Recipes
• Boar’s Head, Compromise Elsewhere: Nutritional Facts and Recipes for Our Premium Products, d. 2012
• Boar’s Head, Delicious Dishes Made Easy, d. 2011
• Bob Evans, New Family Favorites, d. 1997
• Borden, Borden’s Eagle Brand Magic Recipes, d. 1946
• Borden, Recipes from the Borden Kitchen
• Borden, The Dessert Lovers’ Hand-Book
• Brer Rabbit, Brer Rabbit’s Modern Recipes for Modern Living
• Calphalon, Calphalon Cooks Weeknights: Uncomplicated Dishes for Busy People, d. 1996
• Cherry Marketing Institute, Celebrate with Cherries
• Chicken of the Sea, Tempting Tuna Cookbook, d. 1976
• Clabber Girl, Clabber Girl Baking Book, d. 1934
• Colonial Stores, Surprise Sampler, d. 1963
• Corning Glass Works, Corning Ware Electromatics

Box 2: Commercial food and appliance manufacturer cookbooks

• Crisco, American Pie Tradition, d. 1989
• Crisco, Recipes for Good EatingR, d. 1945
• Crock-Pot, Cookbook and Owner’s Manual, d. 2009
• Cuisinart, New Recipes for the Cuisinart Food Processor, d. 1978
• Culinary Arts Institute, 250 Luscious Refrigerator Desserts, d. 1955
• Culinary Arts Institute, 500 Delicious Salads, d. 1940
• Culinary Arts Institute, 500 Snacks, d. 1958
• Culinary Arts Institute, The New England Cookbook, d. 1965
• Cutco, Cutco Cook Book: World’s Finest Cutlery, d. 1972
• Delta, Flavors of: California, Florida, New England, New Orleans, The Caribbean, The Old South, The Southwest (d. 1972-75)
• Dream Whip, Sweet Endings from Dream Whip Whipped Topping Mix, d. 1974
• Dreher, The Dreher Sausage Cookbook, d. 1997
• Eden Foods, Quick Easy Recipes, d. 2010
• Egg Beaters, Diet for a Healthy Heart, d. 1990
• Florida Department of Citrus, The Best of Florida Cuisine, d. 1999
• Foley Food MIll, Variety in Food with the Foley Food Mill, 1946
• French’s, French Fried Onions Casseroles and More, d. 1996
• General Electric, Frozen Foods: How to Prepare, Package, Freeze, Thaw and Cook
• General Electric, The New Art of Modern Cooking, d. 1937
• General Foods, All About Home Baking, d. 1941
• General Foods, Learn to Bake, d. 1947
• Gibson, Europe’s Cookery America’s Way: The New Gibson Electric Range
• Gold Medal, The Weekend Chef, d. 1986

Box 3: Commercial food and appliance manufacturer cookbooks

• Golden Fluffo, Creative Cooking Made Easy: The Golden Fluffo Cookbook, d. 1956
• Gourmet, Every Day Meals, Too!, d. 2002
• Hamilton Beach, Hamilton Beach Mixette: Recipe and Instruction Book
• Heinz, Salads: A Recipe Book by Heinz, d. 1956
• Hershey, Hershey’s 1934 Cookbook: Revised and Expanded with Chocolate Recipes Brought Up to Date for Use in Today’s Kitchen, d. 1971
• Hidden Valley Ranch, More Than a Salad Dressing
• Hotpoint, Let’s Get Acquainted with Your Hotpoint Electric Range, d. 1945
• Hunt-Wesson, Hunt’s Tomato Paste Recipe Collection
• Jedediah’s House, The Artistry of Sourdough Cooking
• Jell-O, Amazing Magical Jell-O Desserts, d. 1977
• Jell-O, Jell-O Pudding Idea Book, d. 1968
• Jell-O, Joys of Jell-O
• Jell-O, Joys of Jell-O
• Jell-O, Now Jell-O Tastes Twice as Good, d. 1934
• Jell-O, Sweet Moment Desserts, d. 1965
• Jell-O, The Jell-O Pudding Sampler, d. 1976
• Jell-O, The New Joys of Jell-O, d. 1975

Box 4: Commercial food and appliance manufacturer cookbooks

• KC Baking Powder, The Cook’s Book: Recipes Prepared for KC Baking Powder
• Kahlúa, Recipe Book, d. 1986
• Karo, The New Way to Cook Is with Karo!, d. 1963
• Kellogg, The Plus Food for Minus Meals
• KitchenAid, Instructions and Recipes for Your KitchenAid Stand Mixer, d. 2005
• Kitchen Craft, Cook for Life with Kitchen Craft Cookware
• Knox, Knox Gelatine: Dainty Desserts, Candies, Salads, d. 1929
• Knox, Knox Sparkling Granulated Gelatine, d. 1931
• Knox, The Knox Gelatine Cookbook, d. 1977
• Kook-Kwick, Bestmade Kook-Kwick Pressure Cooker Handbook
• Kraft, Food & Family, d. 2003
• Kraft, The Complete Cheese Cookbook, d. 1973
• La Rosa, 101 Ways to Prepare Macaroni: Recipes by La Rosa, d. 1949
• Land O’Lakes, Harvest Baking, d. 2009
• Lea & Perrins, Success in Seasoning, d. 1934
• Lodge, Best One-Dish Recipes, d. 2014
• Lodge, Cast Iron Classics, d. 2004
• Listerine, The Spicy Cookbook, d. 1982
• Marshall-Pope Grocery, Recipe of the Month Magazine, d. 1935
• Mazola Corn Oil, The Olympic Cookbook, d. 1987
• Mentha-Col, Mentha-Col Cook Book: Successful Recipes for Simple Dishes in Use by Southern Housewives
• Metropolitan, Metropolitan Cook Book, d. 1964
• Misty Hills Nursery, Cooking with Rosemary
• Myers’s Rum, Graduate to the Flavor of Myers’s Rum

Box 5: Commercial food and appliance manufacturer cookbooks

• Nabisco, Late Breakfast or Brunch, d. 1968
• Nabisco, Sing a Song of Cereal, d. 1965
• National Live Stock and Meat Board, Thrifty Kitchen: Cooking School Recipe Book (Asheville Citizen-Times All-Electric Cooking School), d. 1952
• National Oats Company, 3 Minute Brand Oatmeals: The New Old-Fashioned Way to Eat, d. 1974
• Nestlé Morsels, Sweet Celebrations!, d. 1984
• Nestlé Toll House, Best-Loved Cookies, d. 1997
• Nestlé Toll House, Best-Loved Cookies, d. 2008
• Nordic Ware, Over 300 Delicious Ways to Use Your Bundt Pans, d. 1973
• North Carolina Department of Agriculture, North Carolina Apple Recipes
• Northwest Yeast Co., The Art of Making Bread at Home
• Ocean Spray, Recipes from the Ocean Spray Kitchen at Cranberry World Visitors Center
• Omaha Steaks, Good Life Guide & Cookbook, d. 1994
• Oster, All-Purpose Mealmaker Pot-Pourri Cookbook
• Oster, Spin Cookery Osterizer Blender Cookbook, d. 1969
• Oxo, SoftWorks Salad Chopper & Bowl
• Pebeco Toothpaste, Gone With The Wind Cookbook – Famous “Southern Cooking” Recipes inspired by the picture “Gone With the Wind”
• Pillsbury, 55 Favorite Ann Pillsbury Cake Recipes, d. 1952
• Pillsbury, Cool & Easy Recipes, d. 1987
• Pillsbury, Goin’ Nuts Cookbook, d. 1978
• Pillsbury, Simply Vegetarian, d. 2002
• Pillsbury Mills, Pillsbury’s 4th Grand National $100,000 Recipe and Baking Contest: 100 Prize-Winning Recipes, d. 1953
• Pillsbury Mills, Pillsbury’s 5th $100,000 Recipe and Baking Contest: 100 Grand National Recipes, d. 1954
• Pillsbury Mills, Pillsbury’s 7th Grand National Cookbook: 100 Easy-to-Follow Prize-Winning Recipes, d. 1956
• Post Grape-Nuts, Post Grape-Nuts
• Prevention, Prevention’s Better Living Cookbook, d. 1977
• Publix, The Be Ultimate Handbook: A Tear and Prepare Guide to Southern Tailgate Food
• Quaker Oats, Oat Meals!, d. 1988
• Quaker Oats, Wholegrain Cookbook, d. 1979
• Randolph Mills, Recipes Using Dainty Biscuit Flour and Randolph Corn Meal
• Royal Baking Powder/Kellogg, Camp Menu
• Rumford, Biscuits and Biscuits Glorified, c.1941
• Rumford, Household Hand Book
• Ryzon, Ryzon Baking Book: A Practical Manual for the Preparation of Food Requiring Baking Powder, d. 1916

Box 6: Commercial food and appliance manufacturer cookbooks

• Snowdrift, Fabulous Fruit Desserts of Fifty States
• Splenda, The Splenda No Calorie Sweetener Cookbook, 2002
• Spry, Spry 20th Anniversary Cookbook of Old and New Favorites, 1955 (2 copies)
• Spry, What Shall I Cook Today?
• Sunbeam, How to Get the Most Out of Your Sunbeam Automatic Mixmaster, d. 1950
• Sunbeam, Portable Electric Cookery, d. 1970
• Sunkist, Recipes for Every Day, d. 1932
• Sun-Maid Raisins, Our Holiday Best, d. 1987
• Sun-Maid Raisins, Sun Maid Raisins: Their Food Value and 92 Selected Recipes, d. 1921
• Sunsweet, Sunsweet Recipes,d. 1950
• Sure-Jell, Perfect Jellles with Sure-Jell, d. 1971
• Swanson, Simply Delicious: Cooking with Swanson Broth, d. 2000
• Swanson, Simply Delicious: Everyday Cooking with Swanson Broth
• Swanson, Simply Delicious: Sensational Low-Fat Cooking Ideas, 1999
• Taste of Home, Taste of Home’s Family Favorites, d. 2002
• The Pampered Chef, Fall/Winter 1997 Season’s Best, d. 1997
• The Pampered Chef, Stoneware Sensations: Baking with The Family Heritage Collection, d. 1997
• Tyson, Uncle Ben’s Chicken & Rice Family Favorites, d. 2000
• United Fruit Company, Tempting Banana Recipes, d. 1950
• United States Department of Agriculture, Money-Saving Main Dishes, d. 1966
• Velveeta, Fresh Ideas from Velveeta: All Easy and Extra Cheesy, d. 1986
• Viriginia-Carolina Peanut Promotions, A Collection of Peanut Recipes
• Watkins, Watkins Cook Book, d. 1934
• West Bend, Better Homes and Gardens: Best Wok Recipes, d. 1987
• Westinghouse, Health-for-Victory Club Meal Planning Guide, d. 1943
• Westinghouse, The Westinghouse Kitchen-Proved Refrigerator Book, ca. 1939
• Westinghouse, Westinghouse Roaster-Oven
• White Castle, Thinking Outside the Box: The White Castle 10th Annual Crave Time Cookbook, d. 2001
• White Lily Flour, Great Baking Begins with White Lily Flour: A Collection of Treasured Southern Baking Recipes, d. 1982
• Willett Distilling Co., Cooking with Bourbon
• Yoplait, Great New Tastes with Yogurt, ca. 1994
• Young’s Golden Pecans, Fun Cooking with Pecans: Old Southern Recipes, New Tested Delights

Box 7: Commercial food and appliance manufacturer cookbooks

• Bosch Magic Mixer, Simply Gourmet: Foods with Flair Made Easy with Today’s Kitchen Machines, d. 1978
• Burpee’s, Burpee’s American Harvest Cookbooks: The Early Summer Garden, d. 1988
• Calphalon, Calphalon International Cookbook, d. 1977
• Gold Medal, Gold Medal Cook Book: A Reproduction of the Original 1904 Edition, d. 1998
• Hunt’s, Hunt’s Complete Tomato Sauce Cookbook, d. 1976
• Jell-O, Jell-O Classic Recipes, d. 2002
• Magic Chef, Magic Chef Cooking: Prepared and Developed in the Research Kitchen of the American Stove Company, d. 1936
• Magic Chef, Magic Chef Cooking: Prepared and Tested in the Research Kitchen of the American Stove Company, d. 1936
• Mirro, Mirro All-Purpose Cook Book, d. 1950
• Nestlé, Perfect Endings: Chocolate Dessert and Beverage Cook Book, d. 1962
• Pastene, Celebrating Great Cooking with Pastene, d. 1999
• ReaLemon, ReaLemon Recipe Collection, d. 1987
• Rumford, Rumford Complete Cook Book, d. 1946
• Rumford, Rumford Complete Cook Book
• Sealtest, 641Tested Recipes from the Sealtest Kitchens, d. 1963
• Sealtest, 1001 Dairy Dishes from the Sealtest Kitchens, d. 1963
• Tabasco, The Tabasco Brand Cookbook, d. 1993
• Welch’s, The Magic of Jelly: 100 New & Favorite Recipes, d. 2005
• Wesson, The Wesson Oil Cookbook, d. 1992
• White House, The New Versatile Vinegars from White House, d. 1995

Box 8: Community Cookbooks (not Southern)

• Causing a Stir: Fabulous Food to get People Talking. Junior League of Dayton, OH. 2000
• The Mark Twain Library Cookbook: A Treasury of Redding Recipes. Mark Twain Library Association, Redding, CT. 1971
• Pella’s Choicest Cooking Recipes, 4th Ed. Women’s Auxilary of Central College, Pella, Iowa. 1948.
• Kitchen Sampler. St. Ceclia’s Guild, Cavalry Episcopal Church, Batabvia, IL. n.d.
• What’s Cookin’? in Old Town, Maine. St Therese Socity of St. Mary’s Catholic Church. 1965
• West of the Rockies: Recipes from Campfire to Candlelight, 3rd. Ed. Junior Service League of Grand Junction, CO. 1998
• Calaveras Grown Cookbook. Calaveras Grown Cookbook Committee, San Andreas, CA. 2003
• From the Chefs of Puesta. Peusta Del Sol PTA, Rio Rancho, NM. 1996
• Help One Another Cook Book. The Dakota Farmer, Aberdeen, SD. 1973
• From the Highlands and the Sea, 3rd. ed.. The Ingonish Women’s Hospital Auxilary. Ingonish, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. 1986.
• Palette to Palate. Albrecht Art Museum & The Junior League of St. Joesph, Missouri. 1985
• Bucks, the Artists’ County, Cooks, 8th printing. Women’s Auxiliary of Trinity Chapel, Solebury, PA. 1969
• Fiesta Under the Sun. Junior League of Phoenix, Arizona. 1982
• “Delicious” recipes from the Elisabeth Morrow School. Parents Association of the Elisabeth Morrow School. Englewood, NJ. 1984
• Bread of Life, Chippewa United Methodist Church, Beaver Falls, PA. 1996
• Le Cookbook: Favorite recipes of French and American residents of Paris. Volunteers of the American Hospital of Paris. 1987.
• The VIP Holiday Cookbook, VOl. IV. American Cancer Society, Northern Virginia Division. 1982
• Favorite Recipes. Wood County Hospital Employees and Retirees. Bowling Green, OH. 2001
• Home Cookin’ is a Family Affair: A Book of Favorite Recipes. Instrumental Music Patrons of Cuyahoga Falls High School, Cuyahoga Falls, OH. n.d.
• Taste and See: Favorite Recipes of Leading Women. Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. 1971
• Party in the Park Cookbook: Gourmet Hors d’Oeuvres. Shaker Lakes Regional Nature Center, Shaker Heights, OH. 1974 å