The reason I chose J&W is because it is where I took my formal culinary training and while I was there, I noted that very little of use was in their library when it came to Chinese cooking. Years later, I found myself collecting out of print Chinese cookbooks, because I realized that a good bit of very useful information was contained within them. As I learned more and more about them, the idea of researching the history of Chinese cookbooks in English came to mind. As my collection began to grow (I only have about two hundred volumes currently), I decided I would eventually donate them to J&W, to give a resource to culinary students to learn about Chinese cookery.

Thank you for posting–and yes, I will definately keep in touch!

This day, annotation of my donation of 2,626 Chinese cookbooks in English (with or without another language) can be accessed at the Stony Brook University’s special collections website. It is an interactive site, check out books about tofu, Sichuan food, or whatever other key word you’d like. Bless Stony Brook University for making this available to all.

For the record, I personally annotated them all; have more than five hundred more still in personal use and not on that listing nor part of that collection/donation; they will eventually join the SUSB collection.

Hope others join in this type of donation and the effort to apprise the world about the sociological, historical, anthropological, cultural, etc. values in cookery volumes.

Keep in touch:

Jacqueline M Newman