Community Cookbooks at the NYPL Simmons LibGuide

How can we use the NYPL Simmons LibGuide to learn more about its culinary ephemera or to develop our own community cookbook?

Developed by Clara Scholtz, the NYPL Simmons LibGuide is meant to provide resources from its library, relevant to culinary ephemera and narratives. Various links are directed to NYPL books related to collective recipes within different categories ranging from ‘recent and current cookbooks’ or ‘community cookbooks in the news.’ Some notable books that have been highlighted in the library guide are The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook (2010), Salad for President Community Cookbook Inspired by Artists (2017), The Cooking Gene (2017), Together Community Cookbook (2018), and Family Meal (2020).

Each community cookbook consists of recipes from people from various positionalities and tastes that can give us hints on what types of food brings the community together. For example, the Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook specifically focuses on exploring the diverse foodways of the American South, particularly recipes from 170 scholars, fishers, spiritualists, chefs, and more unique personalities that can only be truly discovered through engaging with the book. In contrast, Salad for President focuses on highlighting 75 artists’ salad recipes, which farther narrows down their scope of interest and community.

This library guide moreover incorporates information from other library databases in order to fill in information gaps about community cookbooks that their own library may not have the ability of providing access to. One wonderful example here, is the NYPL’s direction towards the University of Southern Mississippi's Community Cookbook Project led by Prof. Andrew P. Haley and the academic librarians there: