The Times cook book, no. 2

From the librarian's dossier · AI-generated, grounded in the scanned text

The Times Cook Book No. 2 is a 1905 community-sourced cookbook compiled by the Los Angeles Times from recipes submitted by California women, many of them explicitly credited by name and hometown. With 861 anchored food records, it is a large, wide-ranging collection spanning Spanish and Mexican-influenced dishes, soups, salads, breads, cakes, pies, puddings, preserves, marmalades, eggs, fish and fowl, meats, vegetables, candies, and even menus for special occasions like Easter luncheons and picnics. The book reflects the culinary life of Southern California at the turn of the twentieth century, showing both economical home cooking and more elaborate entertaining fare. Its most distinctive feature is a substantial opening section devoted to Spanish and Mexican dishes such as chili con carne, tamales, enchiladas, and Spanish rice, reflecting the region's cultural heritage. The extensive marmalade section, built almost entirely around local navel and Valencia oranges, further roots the book in its Southern California setting. As a reader's document today, it offers a window into home cooking practices, contest culture, and community identity in early 1900s Los Angeles, presented through recipes contributed by ordinary readers rather than professional chefs or a single named author.

The book is organized into topical sections that move from savory to sweet and from everyday to festive fare. It opens with a dedicated Spanish Dishes section, then proceeds through several soup sections, salads, bread and rolls, sandwiches, an extensive multi-section cake collection, pies and puddings, desserts, marmalades and preserves, orange and lemon specialties, eggs, fish and fowl, meats and stews, vegetables, a miscellaneous section, invalid dishes and special menus (Easter luncheon, picnic lunches), and finally home-made candies. Many sections are numbered sequentially by recipe (for example continuing from No. 58 through No. 109 in the soup sections), and most individual recipes are credited to named contributors with their California town or address, giving the book a community-anthology structure rather than a single authorial voice.