Reading old cookbooks carefully reveals that they bring us more than just nostalgia and family memories. 
Another Australian, ABC News journalist Emma Siossian, calls cookbooks “snapshots” of who we are and where we came from. As an example, she tells the story of making a Christmas sponge cake from a recipe in Janet Gunn’s family’s literal family cookbook. The book was first owned by Gunn’s grandmother, who bought it in the 1930s. During World War II, Gunn’s mother made a sponge cake using the same recipe and had it delivered to her father, who was serving in New Guinea, by the Red Cross. 
Today, next to the recipe, there is still a handwritten note of the prices of each ingredient at that time that her mother carefully wrote down. Gunn also keeps the cookbooks handwritten by her grandmother, mother and mother-in-law, which she treasures very much. 
It’s not just the history of an individual or family. Looking at old books, we can see the ups and downs of life, as well as the inferences from the bullet points listing ingredients and the meticulous instructions on how to cook. For example, according to Siossian, rereading The Barossa Cookery Book, one of Australia’s oldest recipe collections, shows us what the status of women was like back then. The Barossa Cookery Book was first published in 1917, and was reprinted several times in the following years until the revised edition was released in 1932. In the original edition, the female authors were not even named, but referred to only by their husbands’ initials. 
Two modern-day women, Sheralee Menz and Marieka Ashmore, are leading a project to trace the past, hoping to find the names of those women and their life stories, so that they can be given the credit they deserve. Avery Blankenship, a doctoral student at Northeastern University (USA), has made a similar discovery about the "authorship" of ancient recipes. Accordingly, in the 19th century, the person whose name was on the cookbook - a type of book that was extremely important to new brides at that time - was not the real "father" of the recipes in it. Noble homeowners often hired people to copy recipes created by their cooks or slaves, and compile them into books. Of course, those half-literate slaves did not know that they were completely unnamed and did not receive any recognition for their contributions. 
Cookbooks, Wessell says, are also a database for charting changes such as migration, the availability of different ingredients, and technological changes. For example, Blankenship analyzes Elizabeth Smith Miller’s 1875 book In the Kitchen, which traces the transition from narrative to more scientific recipe writing, with full ingredient lists and measurements at the beginning, as we see today. Readers of the book can also learn about the post-Civil War America. Some of the recipes, such as the one for bacon, provide a more comprehensive historical view of slavery in the United States at the time. Emily Catt, curator of the National Archives of Australia, which houses the country’s vast collection of cookbooks, says the recipes also reflect the challenges of the times. 
Writing for History News Network in July, Blankenship argued that reading old recipes is an art, because hidden within them can be a surprising treasure trove of history, relationships, and changing perceptions. The book raises the question: Who exactly is “in the kitchen,” and who has the right to be considered a role holder in that space? She admits that reading recipes that require “unknowns” and historical and cultural connections is not pleasant, but those who master this “art” will gain a lot of enlightenment. "[This] helps reveal women who might otherwise have been forgotten by history and, more broadly, raises questions about the origins of culinary traditions, about how many hands toiled in the making of those culinary histories. The same approach can be applied to your own family cookbooks: where did your grandmother's recipes come from? Who were her closest friends? Whose cakes did she like best? Which names are mentioned and which are hidden? These are important questions that await answers—though they may never be fully answered," Blankenship writes. 
First, the earliest appearance is probably the Annamese Cookbook (1) by author RPN, published by Tin Duc Thu Xa, Saigon in 1909, according to information saved on Google Books. 
Next in order are the Annamese Cookbook (2) by Mrs. Le Huu Cong, Maison J. Viet, Saigon in 1914 and the Hundred Thousand Food Recipes (3) by Truong Thi Bich (pen name Ty Que), published by the family, printed in Hanoi, 1915. Particularly noteworthy is the book Tan Da Thuc Pham (4) by Nguyen To, who claimed to be the poet's disciple, recording Tan Da's eating life from 1928 - 1938. The book was published by Duy Tan Thu Xa in 1943, including 74 homemade dishes of "chef" Tan Da. Each dish at that time did not cost more than 2 dong - equivalent to today's gold price of about 280,000 dong, which was quite luxurious. Another document said that at that time, a bowl of pho was only a few cents; even if it was 5 cents, then 2 dong was worth 40 bowls of pho. The only thing is, I don't know where the poet got the money to buy wine and cook food every day. Let's look at three ancient Vietnamese recipes (1, 3 and 4) representing the three regions mentioned above, to see how to cook/process some of the most common familiar dishes of the Vietnamese people. 
Although everyone says that the dish of fish stewed in am is a specialty of their hometown, it is available all over the country. It is available in RPN (Saigon), Mrs. Ty Que (Hue), and Tan Da (Hanoi) books. According to Le Van Duc's Vietnamese dictionary, "rice porridge (am) has a lot of pepper, eaten hot to make you sweat". This meaning is quite similar to the meaning of "am" in the Annam - French dictionary (1898) by Génibrel: pleasant. Comfort food - a comforting dish? 
Nowadays, snakehead fish, striped snakehead fish and snakehead fish are the common denominators in the dish of "am" porridge. "Am" is the name of the outer region, "am" is the name of the inner region. Westerners say that "am" is not as delicious as "black snakehead fish", while Northerners say the opposite. I believe Westerners more, because that is the place where snakehead fish are widely available, and they have the opportunity to wear down their teeth to make a judgment about "better". The types of snakehead fish generally include "black snakehead fish", "thick snakehead fish" and "hanh duoc" fish, but the common denominator has an exception in the dish "am" of the "drinking devil" Mr. Tan Da, who prefers to choose carp or "coop" fish (sea carp). But with a high-level fish with small bones like carp, our drunken poet had to go through a process of making the bones rot, but the fish's meat was still firm. The respectable place of Tan Da is the way of eating full of taste: "The pot of porridge is always kept on the stove to boil. When eating, pick up the vegetables and put them in the bowl, cut a piece of fish, dip it in shrimp paste, lemon, chili, and water beetles, put them on top and eat. Chew the fish and vegetables thoroughly, then scoop up a few spoons of hot porridge and slurp." The cuisine of the past is no less than the Michelin cuisine of today! It is better, if you count Tan Da. In some places in the past, porridge was turned into soup like the fish stewed in am today. Like "Canh ca ca stewed in am" by Truong Thi Bich: "Canh ca stewed in am is skillful in making the offal / Braised onion fat with clear fish sauce / Sweet shrimp paste seasoned with pepper and chili / Tomatoes, ripe star fruit and it's done". 
Chicken was a meat that could once be eaten quietly without the neighbors knowing. In that situation, repression led to the creation of many chicken dishes outside of old books. 
It is worth mentioning that the ancient way of cooking "tiêm" was to use green beans, peanuts, jujubes, lotus seeds, black fungus, and shiitake mushrooms stuffed into the chicken's gizzard, then simmer until cooked. Use the broth to make soup (thang). The stewed chicken "guts" are the main dish. In the past, Chinese families who held memorial services often did charity work by taking out the chicken intestines to eat with soup and giving chicken meat to beggars. Nowadays, "tiêm" is completely different from the past. For example, when stewing chicken with green chili, chili leaves and chili peppers are used to make a hot pot with a pre-prepared chicken. The chicken is cooked to the degree that the diners want it to be, it is no longer the soft charm of the old days. Mrs. Bich has two chicken dishes with the following verses, reading them, you immediately know what the dish is without needing an introduction: "Skillfully stewed chicken, because the water is clear/The fish sauce is seasoned with sour salt and freshly ground/The bamboo shoots and mushrooms are put in a little pepper/The green onions are used to make the dish"; "The young chicken is skillfully steamed until it is sweet and soft/Tear it into small pieces and then sprinkle with water/Sprinkle salt and pepper evenly and knead to absorb/Rhum and cinnamon leaves are rubbed in again". Tan Da's chicken dish is more elaborate: fake peacock spring rolls. He chooses a fat young hen, burns it over a fire to remove the down feathers, filters out two loins (breasts), rubs them with salt, chops them finely and mixes them with minced cooked pork skin (not pounded like the Southerners), mixes with finely ground roasted salt and glutinous rice powder. Wraps it in young fig leaves, outside with banana leaves. Hangs it up for three days to make it sour. Eats it with crushed garlic salt. Compared to peacock spring rolls, which he has eaten several times, he thinks it is not inferior. 
Vietnamese fish sauce has recently been on fire like a ripe charcoal fire in the kitchen. Vietnamese people do not call fermented salted plants fish sauce, so this article does not mention soy sauce. In discussing fish sauce, author RPN may have been infected with the West, with "fishpaste-phobia", only passingly mentioning it in "Chapter VII, fish sauces". 
Later, Mrs. Bich from Hue "lived a culinary life" with a rich fish sauce, especially with shrimp paste as MSG. In the book, there are 40 of her dishes seasoned with "fish sauce" and additives to soften (sugar, shrimp, shrimp paste, meat...), create aroma (garlic, onion, ginger, pepper, sesame), create fat (fat), create sourness (star fruit). There is a recipe for "cooking fish sauce" with 4 types of fish: "Doi, Dia, Ngu, Nuc, marinate how much/ Fish sauce is accumulated for a long time, it looks like there is a lot/ Grill the bones of the animals, wrap them in a towel and cook/ Filter carefully with a thick cloth, the water is clear". 
Her fish sauces are also very strange: "Fake shrimp paste", "Crab roe sauce", "Sour shrimp sauce" (a dish whose taste is unknown but seems to be more famous than the famous sour shrimp sauce of Go Cong), "Nem sauce", "Tuna sauce", "Tuna intestine sauce", "Tuna sauce, mackerel sauce with powdered rice", "Doi sauce, dia sauce with powdered rice", "Anchovy sauce", "Mam nem ca anchovy", "Mam nem ca mac", "Mam nem mac bo chili and tomato", "Mam nem canh" and "Ruoc khuyet". There are 12 types of fish sauces in total. People in the West today have to take their hats off before people in Hue. Going to Hanoi, getting lost in Uncle Tan Da's fish sauce world, one becomes even more naive and strange. The fish sauces he made himself included "Nuoc mam cay", "Nuoc mam rib (pork)", "Mam ca mam", "Mam thuy tran" (small shrimp that "looks like bran" and is popular in the season after Tet), "Mam ruoi", "Mam tom rao" (as big as a finger), "Mam tom riu, tom gao", "Mam ca lan canh" (carp family, small fish), "Mam ca ngan", "Mam ca perch". It should be added that in the early 1900s, the instructions for making the dish by author RPN were not concise and difficult to follow. Each quatrain for a dish by Mrs. Ty Que was even more difficult to understand, especially since there were quite a lot of Hue dialects... Looking at old books and comparing them with modern books, it goes without saying that there have been many changes. 
Following a recipe to make a delicious dish is no longer the ultimate goal of cookbooks, for both the writer and the reader. Although they no longer have the superstar status they had before the advent of cooking shows on television and recipes flooding the internet, cookbooks are still a selling product, even if not everyone who buys them does so to learn from them. 
They brought a yellowed original copy of The Margaret Fulton Cookbook (1969), proudly reporting that her book had been passed down through generations - given to the next generation when they moved out and started families. 
Fulton would then smile sweetly and flip through the pages as if searching for something. Then she would close the book, looking at them with a face of pretended annoyance and "loving reproach" as above. This is a memory of her grandmother Margaret Fulton as told by food writer Kate Gibbs in The Guardian in late 2022. Gibbs said this is proof that going into the kitchen and following a recipe can only play a supporting role in a cookbook. So what do people buy them for? "Partly for daydreaming. People imagine dinner parties, gatherings, neatly set tables and engaging conversations. Just like how we buy fashion magazines like Vogue when we have no intention of taking off the sandals we are wearing, or read beautiful home magazines when we can't even afford the rent" - Gibbs wrote. Indeed, nowadays, if you want to find a recipe, there are thousands of ways. Today's cuisine is a meeting place between those who want to tell stories and those who are willing to listen. Buying a cookbook and never cooking anything from it is not uncommon, and that's okay. 
"I buy cookbooks to find cooking ideas, to read interesting stories and to learn kitchen techniques rather than to find recipes, which can be found on Google," - culture writer Nilanjana Roy wrote in the Financial Times magazine in May 2023. In an article on LitHub, author Joshua Raff also pointed out the differences between cookbooks before and after the explosion of online recipes and the trend towards convenience. 
Specifically, according to this culinary writer, in the past, classic books such as French Country Cooking (1951), Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) or The Classic Italian Cookbook (1973) provided basic knowledge for many generations of chefs from amateur to professional with French and Italian recipes, along with instructions and some basic cultural context. 
But they had no pictures, no personal stories about cooking or enjoying a meal with friends and family, and no broader cultural commentary. This is very different from today's cookbooks, which, in addition to recipes and instructions on techniques and ingredients, often contain a story that illuminates a recipe, a culture, or a setting, and are read as personal essays, travel books, or lifestyle books. Matt Sartwell, manager of New York's culinary bookstore Kitchen Arts and Letters, agrees: cookbook buyers want something more than just a set of recipes; and that "something" is the author's own voice. 
Similarly, Michael Lui Ka, former editor of Eat and Travel Weekly and owner of Hong Kong-based food bookstore Word by Word, has followed her own philosophy of combining science, creativity and cooking in her collection of 365 Chinese soup recipes. “I wanted to introduce a soup every day, building the collection based on the seasons and traditional Chinese solar terms, which can affect our metabolism and bodily functions,” she told the South China Morning Post. Cookbooks are also fun and spark creativity. “It’s not just about reproducing recipes, it’s about thinking about how chefs create them,” Peter Find, head chef at German restaurant Heimat by Peter Find in Hong Kong, told the South China Morning Post. According to him, the recipes in the book help readers understand the mind of the chef, even if they don’t know if they can make them. 
Besides, one reason why many readers seek out cookbooks is to get clear instructions from experts, when the vast amount of information on the Internet can make people dizzy and not know which way to cook properly. Moreover, book buyers also want to know what chefs think, how to cook to become famous in the industry. Not to mention, a cookbook written by a famous chef will be a valuable gift or souvenir for yourself or loved ones who love cooking, just like the way people are proud to own a copy of The Margaret Fulton Cookbook from 1969. 
Helen Le, or Le Ha Huyen, currently lives and works in Da Nang. She is the owner of the YouTube channel Helen's Recipes (over 639,000 followers) and the author of Vietnamese Food with Helen's Recipes (2014), Vietnamese Food with Helen (2015), Simply Pho (English published in 2017, Chinese published in 2019), Xi Xa Xi Xup (2017); Mon Chay Bep Nha (2021) and most recently Vegan Vietnamese (2023). * You are already famous for your video recipes, why do you still want to publish books, when people can easily learn from your YouTube? - The video viewers were the first to ask me to make a book because they wanted to hold a tangible work in their hands - where readers can find stories, and connect with culinary culture in a deeper way. That was the motivation for me to start making books, even though I am not really good at writing. After self-publishing my first book, I realized that book publishing has a different value that videos cannot completely replace. Books provide a personal experience, helping readers focus, explore each page slowly, thoughtfully and contemplatively. It also creates a sense of nostalgia and tradition - like the way we used to look for recipes in our mother or grandmother's notebooks. In addition, books can be stored and referenced at any time, whether there is Internet or not. For me, book publishing is a way to summarize and preserve culinary experiences and knowledge, creating a more lasting and sustainable value than the fast-paced digital life of online content. In a few decades, my videos may disappear due to platform changes, but my books will still be on the shelves of library systems around the world. That's special, isn't it? * The cookbook market is heavily influenced by online media, what factors help you still confidently choose to publish books? - I believe that cookbooks have a special appeal and values that cannot be easily replaced by online content, such as reliability and systematicity. 
Cookbooks, especially those from celebrity chefs or food influencers, often provide quality, time-tested recipes. Readers can trust that the recipes are accurate and will turn out as expected. Cooking from recipes found online, on the other hand, can be a bit hit-or-miss. A cookbook can provide a systematic approach that can help beginners improve gradually or delve deeper into a particular cuisine. In addition, a book creates a real-world experience that online tools cannot provide. Flipping through a book, taking notes directly on it, or keeping it in the kitchen is always an enjoyable experience for those who love to cook. It is like a personal possession that can be kept for generations. When reading a book, readers have the space and time to contemplate and study it more carefully. Meanwhile, with online content, people tend to skim quickly and can be distracted by many other factors. Many authors in the world today follow the path of writing cookbooks not only to share recipes but also other values. Is this view true for you and your books? I also believe that a cookbook is not simply a collection of recipes, but also a cultural and emotional journey. In each recipe, I always try to share stories about the origin of the dish, personal memories, or characteristics of family history and tradition. I hope that through the books, readers will not only learn how to cook but also understand more deeply about Vietnamese culture, feel the love and passion that I have for cuisine. The combination of recipes and stories helps create a comprehensive experience, inspiring readers to explore and appreciate more traditional culinary values. In addition, I also pay attention to the aesthetics of the food presentation and book design. Beautiful images and harmonious layouts not only attract readers but also inspire cooking. I hope that through these efforts, my books can bring value beyond cooking, becoming a bridge between people and culture, between the past and the present. Thank you! 
Unable to resist the temptation of eating food in movies, Tran Ba Nhan decided to start cooking the delicious dishes he saw on screen. Nhan is the owner of the TikTok channel let Nhan cook (@nhanxphanh) with more than 419,600 followers after nearly 2 years. Although he has never studied cooking, the 26-year-old TikToker attracts viewers with a special series "In the Movies" - with nearly 60 videos recreating dishes that have appeared on screen, from live-action movies to animations. That is ramdon noodles in Parasite, ratatouille in the animated film of the same name, shoyu ramen in Detective Conan, then scallion oil noodles in Everything Everywhere All at Once, or even traditional tacos in the blockbuster Avengers: Endgame... 
Each video is meticulously filmed, leading viewers into the kitchen where Nhan introduces the food, the movie, the ingredients, and the method of making it meticulously. Currently working in logistics in Ho Chi Minh City, Nhan said that when watching movies, he always pays special attention to the cooking scenes or the dishes that appear, and at the same time wants to try those dishes. "I see that no one has made dishes in movies with specific details on how to prepare them, or information about the ingredients to introduce to everyone, so I started to try making them in my own style" - Nhan said. From the first videos that were still reserved, by mid-2023, the videos on Nhan's channel began to be well received by the audience and they started asking him to cook more dishes. "At first, I would choose dishes in good, famous movies or movies that I liked, gradually when people watched and had their own requests for specific dishes in a certain movie, I would choose dishes that were feasible in terms of recipe and form to make" - he said. After choosing a dish, Nhan researches information, ingredients, and how to make it. "Another important thing is that when recreating dishes in movies, viewers will like scenes that 'imitate' the camera angles and actions in the movie, so I also research to put them in the video." Nhan said that most of the dishes in movies do not have specific recipes, only ingredients. Sometimes some ingredients are not mentioned, so he has to watch them over and over again, look at the pictures, and guess based on related information. Usually, dishes in movies will be varied, creative, or combined with real-life dishes. 
On the contrary, there are also successful dishes that are in fact "delicious to no words described", like Ichiraku Ramen from Naruto or Karaage Roll from Food Wars. "I hope that one day can open a small restaurant to serve the dishes in the movie so that those who love that movie or are curious to try to have the opportunity to experience" - Tiktoker adds more. 
The novel can also become an inspiration for food. Food plays an important role as a literary means to help express the mood, increase the depth of the characters and their experiences. 
The dishes in the story are also a symbol of culture, psychology and living circumstances of the character. The food in The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) is often associated with the luxury and wealth of the upper class in the 1920s. 
The food here is not only material satisfaction but also a symbol of frivolous and artificial frivolous. of his neighbor Laurence. 
Pizza is not only a dish but also a symbol of enjoyment, freedom, connection with the world through the taste and culture of each place she comes and the way Elizabeth learns how to love herself through simple but meaningful experiences when she has escaped boring salads to keep her slender body and prison life in the US. 
By identifying, processing and enjoying the dishes coming out of the novel, readers can participate in stories in a new and meaningful way. More sophisticated and hearty banquet tables, making readers who love cuisine to collect and test. Since then, the "reconstructed" articles of cooking recipes or cooking books inspired by novels were born. 
Inspired by the four -season life in England, childhood in Australia, cozy meals with family and pages of memories of cuisine, Young has created "100 cooking recipes from the favorite stories", from Edmund's Turkish Delight in the Narnia chronicle (CS Lewis), the peas in the long pippi (ASTRID LINDGREN). Rdian extracted the three -meal recipe of Young's book: Misthable with Miso soup from Norwegian forest, noon using Spankopita, Greek cake kneaded from dough with walnuts, avocado, honey, spinach, cheese, inspired by the bipolar (Jeffrey Eugenides), and have dinner with the Western onions in The End of the Affair (Graham Greene). There is also a night party with "great and flexible, hot marmalade rolls" in the Lion, witches and wardrobe (Narnia chronicle part 2) Karen Pierce, a culinary pen in Toronto (Canada), and explore the recipes hidden in the entire work of the queen of the Detective Agatha Christie. Murder: 66 Dishes that Celebrate the Mysteries of Agatha Christie in August last year. The dishes stretched from the 1920s to 1960, deliberately named it inspired by which story, such as Fish and Chips "Fish and Chips at the Seven Dials Club" (Seven Seven Clock Stories) 
Snakehead fish cooked in a new version. Photo: Ngu Yen
The 50th Anniversary Edition of The Margaret Fulton Cookbook. Photo: Hardie Grant Books
Australian food blogger Phoodie shared a photo of a signed copy of The Margaret Fulton. Phoodie will be giving the book to her daughter, thus passing it down to the fourth generation of her family.
Cookbooks at a bookstore in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: TS
New cookbooks published in 2024. Photo: Esquire synthesis
Helen Le and published cookbooks. Photo: NVCC
Food in the cartoon and the version recreated by Nhan. Photo cut from video
Recipes for Murder and Chocolate Cake have an impressive name "Delicious death". Photo: NDR
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