The Berkeley Cook Book. Four Hundred Practical Receipts Used by Berkeley Women. Compiled by the Women’s Association of the First Congregational Church.

Berkeley, California: [The Church; Printed by the]Press of Standard Publishing Company, 1903.

Octavo (23.25 x 14 cm.), [iv], 171, [i] pages. Advertisements. Index. Evident first edition (but subsequent to an 1884 publication with different subtitle, author statement, and publisher). A generous church cookbook with seven hundred recipes; noteworthy among them: Squash Muffins, Celery Root and Hearts of Artichoke, Mussel Bordelaise, Clam Patties, Spanish Meat Pie, Coffee Fruit Cake, Lemon Cocoanut Cake, Cookies with Sherry, Monterey Pudding, Gooseberry Pudding, Pineapple Blanc-Mange, Strawberry Mousse. ~ Congregationalists answered the call from President Daniel Coit Gilman (1831-1908) of the University of California to build a hall and organize a fellowship of moral vision within reach of the campus community. The “local church” emphasis of Congregationalist governance had already attracted the largest Protestant presence in San Francisco. After ten years of planning, members of Berkeley First Congregational were called to new quarters by a recently cast bell, on 30 September 1884, at the corner of Durant Avenue and Dana Street. Thus the early version of The Berkeley Cook Book (subtitled A Collection of Choice and Tested Recipes) celebrated the dedication of the 1884 church, while its younger sibling of 1903 would have appeared in time to honor the building’s twentieth anniversary. ~ In another twenty years, they would move again, to a grander brick complex on Channing Way (still only a few city blocks from campus), designed by the Bay Area architect Horace Gardner Simpson. It served successive generations for ninety years, but in September 2016 was gutted by fire, and the building’s fate is undetermined as of this writing. ~ Clean and bright. Lightly wear at fore-corners and spine. Stapled, in olive wrappers, titled in brown. Very good. [OCLC locates three copies (also four copies of The Berkeley Cook Book: A Collection of Choice and Tested Recipes, by the Ladies of Berkeley [Oakland: Pacific Press, 1884]); Cook, page 27; Brown 57 (with different pagination); not in Cagle].

Price: $450.00