The Old Vanity Fair Tea Room Recipes gathered from far and near

There were rumblings about a women-only athletic club in Los Angeles as early as 1906, when the Los Angeles Times flippantly jibed,  “My sister says the girl trying to organize a women’s athletic club is just agitating it because she looks cute in blumers.”

 

By 1912, a group of women had officially incorporated and secured an investment to break ground on a facility. Health-oriented clubs were just taking hold on the West Coast. That same year, the Los Angeles Athletic Club opened its new, state-of-the-art, 12-story clubhouse in Downtown LA. While the LAAC was unusual in allowing women, it catered to its male members. 

 

Yet, no clubhouse quickly materialized for LA’s women. By 1922, new Club President Miss Humphreys told the Los Angeles Times, “Our club has long been a dream of women of this community, and with the recent business growth and development of our great city, the time seems ripe for the realization of that dream. Los Angeles can well support such a club home, and it will meet a very generally felt need.” 

 

Later that year, a location on Flower Street between 8th and 9th Streets in downtown LA was secured. “Once again, the women of Los Angeles are in the van of progress” The LA Times proclaimed. Founding “lifetime” members included names that appear in several other cookbooks in this archive, including suffragist Clara Burdette (who also helped found The Ebell and The Friday Morning Club) and Marian Otis Chandler (wife of Los Angeles Times Publisher Harry Chandler).

 

However, the clubhouse did not break ground until 1924 (pictured) on a building designed by firm Allison & Allison. The cornerstone was laid by October - marked with a luncheon at the nearby Friday Morning Club, another Allison & Allison designed building, which also has two cookbooks in this archive. 

 

The Club officially opened its doors in May of 1925, with “seventy bedrooms, six private dining rooms, a spacious library, smoking room, beauty parlor, Pompeilian plunge, and a gymnasium for members. In addition to the six private dining rooms there will be a large main dining room.” In celebration of the Club’s opening, 37 Southern California women’s clubs gathered for a dinner. In addition to its athletic and dining facilities, the Club prided itself on its living quarters as a place where single women could live freely and comfortably. 

 

The Club thrived until encountering financial problems during WWII. The building became the wartime LA headquarters for the Women’s Army Corps, and later was purchased by the Moral Rearmament Movement. Sadly, it was torn down in 1972.

 

Still, in this cookbook we have many recipes served in the Club’s main dining room to help conjure memories of another time.

I have cooked from this book!

 

The many dainty treats featured in this book made it a perfect resource for a “going-away tea platter” that I put together for a dear friend. I chose this recipe for pears with cream cheese partly for their size and sweet visual appearance - perfect alongside tea sandwiches! 

 

Cream cheese is a distinctly American ingredient first named and mass produced by a dairy farmer in Upstate New York in the 1870s. It was distributed, confusingly, under the moniker Philadelphia Cream Cheese at an expensive price and mostly used by upscale New York restaurants. 

 

The spread became more widely available in the 1920s and started appearing in more cookbooks, such as this one. Two years after this book’s publication, cream cheese had an auspicious debut at the 1929 World’s Fair, where a New York cheesecake made with cream cheese won first prize. 

 

While it would become a ubiquitous component of American hors d'oeuvres, party snacks, desserts (and of course, bagels!), at the time of this cookbook, cream cheese likely still had an aura of refinement tracing back to its origins on restaurant menus.

SPORTS

California Yacht Cookery 

Cookin' From Scratch

LABU Cookbook, The

Lakers Are Cookin' Again, The

Old Vanity Fair Tea Room Recipes gathered from far and near, The

Our Favorites: A Collection of Recipes Contributed By The Chefs of Southern California's Private Clubs

Scoring Recipes

Square Dancer's Cookbook, A

Taste of Our Town, A

World Champion Los Angeles Lakers Are Cookin': Family Cook Book

 

HARRIET CHILD WADLEIGH

Friday Morning Club Juniors Cook Book 

Friday Morning Club Cook Book, The 

Landmarks Club Cook Book 

The Old Vanity Fair Tea Room Recipes gathered from far and near

 

CLARA BURDETTE

Danties That Are Bread In a Book: Shakespeare Club Cook Book 

The Ebell Club of Los Angeles Cook Book

Ebell Recipes

Friday Morning Club Juniors Cook Book 

The Friday Morning Club Cook Book

The Landmarks Club Cook Book 

The Old Vanity Fair Tea Room Recipes gathered from far and near

Southwest Cooks! The Tradition of Native American Cuisines

 

 

Due to their fragile nature, each book is being digitized by hand. If you have particular interest in a particular cookbook, please reach out via the Contact Page, so it will be given priority.