Los Angeles Times Cook Book - No. 2
From "California Women," as submitted to the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles, 1905
This cookbook is the 2nd in a series of prize-winning recipe books published by the Los Angeles Times between 1902 and 1923 - featuring recipes submitted by California women, primarily those in the Los Angeles area.
Newspapers were some of the earliest book publishers in LA County, which was noticeably behind San Francisco in printing its own books. In 1854, The Los Angeles Star is thought to have printed the first, soft-cover book in Southern California; a bilingual, church manifesto written by noted eccentric and huckster William Money. In 1881, Horace Bell wrote and published Reminiscences of a Ranger: Early Times in Southern California, believed to be the first “real” (i.e. cloth-bound) book printed in LA. At the time, Horace owned and edited The Porcupine, a newspaper devoted to fighting municipal corruption.
The Los Angeles Times began publishing that same year under the banner Los Angeles Daily Times. The following year, Harrison Gray Otis took over as editor and would remain so until his death in 1917.
This cook book’s cover advertises an extensive number of “Spanish and Mexican” dishes. While the book does include recipes of both Mexican and Spanish origin, the terms were often muddled, as explored in this piece on Eater LA. Many of the recipes in this archive are adaptations or straight up appropriations of Mexican dishes. However, Latinx cooks have always had their own, strong presence in California cookbook publishing. El Cocinero Espanol, printed in San Francisco in 1898, is thought to be the first spanish-language cookbook printed in the United States.
Yes, there were rice waffles a century before the gluten-free craze. The two recipes I cooked from this book both highlight ingredients that were prevalent in early Los Angeles: citrus and rice.
The Los Angeles Times Cook Book No. 2 includes pages upon pages of recipes for orange marmalades and many other kinds of preserved citrus. Spanish missionaries began cultivating citrus in Southern California in the 1700s, and by the 1840s, Downtown los angeles was the site of California’s first official “citrus farm”. Citrus helped spur the growth of Los Angeles’ economy, and by 1905 - when this book was published - oranges were a bountiful crop readily available to most households. This archive also includes several cookbook produced by the California Fruit Growers Exchange, a growers cooperative established during this same time period.
Not to be confused with wild rice, a staple of some Native American diets, cereal grain rice wouldn’t be cultivated in California until the decade following this book’s publication. However it was already an accessible import, first brought over by Chinese immigrants during the Gold Rush. As of 2006, California is the second largest rice producer in The United States.
For this recipe by Mrs. T.S. Home, I used rice from Koda Farms, which started cultivating rice in California in the 1910s (pictured). Founded by Keisaburo Koda, a Japanese immigrant, it is the oldest continually operating rice farm in the state. You can read more about the farm’s history, including during Japanese internment, on the Koda Farms website.
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NEWSPAPERS
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Los Angeles Times Cookbook No. 3 (Red Cover)
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Los Angeles Times Cookbook Number Three (Red Cover)
Los Angeles Times Economy Cook Book Number Five
Los Angeles Times Prize Cook Book
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Recipe Spectacular Contest
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Sunkist Cook Book
Sunkist Holiday Bulletin
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