Page 1931 – fakuto

filed under: shopping

Image credit:

amazon / istock

As a recurring feature, we share some amazing Amazon deals we’ve turned up. These items were the ones that were the most popular with our readers this week, and they’re still available.

Mental Floss has affiliate relationships with certain retailers (including Amazon) and may receive a small percentage of any sale. But we only get commission on items you buy and don’t return, so we’re only happy if you’re happy. Good luck deal hunting!

October 16, 2016 – 11:00am

Amazon Product Id:

B000093L25

October 16, 2016

Have ‘Westworld’ Fans Uncovered the Man in Black’s Identity?

Abbey Stone

filed under: entertainment, Pop Culture, tv

Image credit:

John P. Johnson/HBO

The first two episodes of HBO’s new sci-fi series Westworld offer more questions than answers: Where is the park located? Could a park guest harm another guest (with something other than a gun)? How does Dolores’s hair stay so perfect without hairspray? One of the biggest mysteries, though, is the identity of a character known only as “the Man in Black” (played by Ed Harris). After watching “Chestnut,” the second episode, some fans think they’ve figured it out.

(This is where you stop reading if you’re not interested in theories and don’t want any spoilers…)

One popular fan theory making the rounds posits that William, the park newbie introduced in “Chestnut” (played by Jimmi Simpson) is a younger version of the Man in Black. This would mean that, despite some clever editing, the scenes featuring William take place 30 years before the show’s main action (because in Episode 1, the Man in Black tells Dolores, “I’ve been coming here for 30 years”).

Here’s the evidence fans claim supports this theory (much of which Business Insider has compiled in a helpful video):

– The Westworld William and Logan visit looks different than the one we’re used to: Namely, the Westworld logo William walks by in the main lobby is not the one we’ve seen in the Delos offices; Teddy (James Marsden) doesn’t appear to be on the train to the park; and a group of Union soldiers, rather than the Sheriff, is looking for volunteers in the town square.

– The gleaming escalators leading from the train platform were shown in the first episode—as decrepit and long out of service (see below).

@slashfilm Could William as MIB merely be misdirection? I like this comparison photo from @MessyPandas pic.twitter.com/TD1fgTOYz6

— J. Smith (@AlgonquinDude) October 11, 2016

Naysayers of this theory put forth as counter evidence that the hosts were much cruder at the park’s inception (for example, Old Bill, whom Dr. Robert Ford talks to in the first episode), and the ones in William’s present are difficult to distinguish from real people. This might be true, but we don’t actually know how old the park is. The Man in Black has been visiting for 30 years, but Westworld could very well be much older than that. If the park is 50 years old, for instance, Ford and his team would have been updating the hosts for two decades before William/the Man in Black first arrives. And, since we know that Dolores was the park’s first host, we know that Ford likes to improve existing hosts, rather than swap them out with new ones.

If this theory is true, it means we can look forward to watching William devolve from the white hat-wearing hero to a cruel and violent gunslinger.

[h/t: Business Insider]

October 16, 2016 – 10:00am

October 16, 2016

Look Up Tonight! It’s the Super Hunter’s Moon

David W Brown

Sorry to say it, but your view of the Moon won’t be as good as it was for ESA astronaut Tim Peake on March 28, 2016, when he captured this image of the Moon setting from the International Space Station. Image credit: ESA/NASA

Look up at the sky tonight, October 16, and you’ll be treated not only to a full moon, but a supermoon. And not just any supermoon, but a Super Hunter’s Moon!

WHY A FULL MOON IS FULL

Let’s go over the fundamentals first. If nothing else, take away from this article the knowledge that the Moon’s phases have nothing to do with the Earth’s shadow. Yes, it kind of makes sense: the dark crescents, the predictability, and the orbits: one around the Earth, and both around the Sun. Shadows crossing orbs. But when the Earth’s shadow crosses the Moon, you get a lunar eclipse.

The Moon’s phases are a lot simpler than that. First, the Moon orbits the Earth every 29.5 days. You might have noticed that “moon” and “month” are similar words. That’s not by accident. Moreover, the Moon is “tidally locked” with the Earth, which means from down here, we only see one side of the Moon, ever. Keep this in mind.

One half of the Moon is always fully illuminated by the Sun. As it creeps around the Earth over the course of a month, the illuminated area changes. When the Moon is generally opposite the Sun relative to the Earth (i.e. Sun-Earth-Moon), the side we can see is in full sunlight. It’s a full moon. When the Moon is between the Sun and the Earth (Sun-Moon-Earth), the far side of the Moon—the half of it we never see—is in full illumination. In other words, the half we do see is receiving no sunlight at all. This is a new moon. (N.b. that there is no “dark side of the Moon.” Every side of the Moon gets bathed in sunlight over the course of a revolution.)

The rest of the Moon’s phases proceed from these fully lit or totally darkened states of visibility. As the Moon’s orbit around the Earth takes it away from the Sun, it is said to be waxing, because from our point of view, the Moon is becoming increasingly full. After crossing the halfway point (the full moon), the visible Moon seems to darken. It is waning.

WHAT’S IN A NAME

Not all full moons are created equal. Sometimes the full moon seems really, really big. Sometimes it seems weirdly small. This is because the Moon’s orbit around the Earth is not a perfect circle, but rather, is elliptical. Sometimes it is closer to the Earth than other times. When it is close, it is said to be at perigee. When it is farthest away, it is at apogee. When the Moon is both at perigee and full, you get what is colloquially called a supermoon.

So what about this Hunter’s Moon business? That is what some Native Americans called the full moon in October for reasons that must seem obvious. It provided extra light by which to hunt—a vital activity with winter’s fast approach. (You might recall last month’s harvest moon, whose name has the same rationale as this one: Gather your acorns before snow blankets the forest.)

HOW TO SEE IT

Look up. Other things you’ll see: tiny flickering dots that are stars, unless they’re moving quickly, because those are likely airplanes or the International Space Station. If they’re moving really, really fast, they’re meteors. If you see a tiny stationary dot that doesn’t flicker, it’s probably a planet (or the tip of a cell phone tower). The super hunter’s moon will make planet spotting more difficult. Uranus is at opposition this weekend and thus fully illuminated by the Sun from our point of view, but unless you’re a first-rate astronomer with heavy duty hardware at your disposal, you won’t be able to see it. The full moon above and light pollution below will join forces to wash it out. Even under the best conditions, it’s really difficult to find. If you just vaguely point in the direction of the Moon and say, “See that dot? That’s planet Uranus,” people will probably believe you, though.

One more thing: Because we get a full moon this weekend, Halloween night will have a new moon. In other words, the night sky is going to be really dark: perfect conditions to test out your new clown costume and the response time of the local police department.

October 16, 2016 – 8:00am

October 16, 2016

A Michigan woman traded her Twitter handle

A Michigan woman traded her Twitter handle @DietDrPepper to the Dr. Pepper parent corporation for a truckload of bottled water, which she sent to Flint, Michigan during the contaminated water crisis.

October 16, 2016

In 1995 a Virginia inmate sued himself…

In 1995 a Virginia inmate sued himself for $5 million for violating his own civil rights by getting drunk and getting arrested. The judge dismissed the case but congratulated the man on his “innovative approach to civil rights litigation.”

October 16, 2016

A Socks the Cat-Inspired Video Game Exists—and You Can Own It

Kirstin Fawcett

filed under: cats, presidents, video-games

Image credit:

YouTube

During Bill Clinton’s presidency, the real star of the White House was Socks the Cat, a black-and-white rescue kitty the family adopted in 1991. The First Feline became such a cultural phenomenon that books, postage stamps, and TV show episodes were created in his honor. According to Game Informer, Socks also inspired a long-lost, never-released video game—and now, a Kickstarter campaign wants to bring it to the masses.

Socks the Cat was developed for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in the 1990s, and it was reportedly completed and reviewed by media outlets. Gamers were to play as America’s most famous feline, navigating a White House fraught with dogs, politicians, and spies. But when the game’s publisher closed down, their ode to the presidential kitty disappeared. In subsequent years, people questioned whether the game was ever finished—or if it even existed.

In 2011, a private video game collector uploaded video footage of Socks the Cat onto YouTube, and—predictably enough—the gaming world noticed. Another collector, Tom Curtin, was lucky enough to purchase the only known copy of Socks. He also acquired the rights, and joined forces with retro video game publisher Second Dimension to fine-tune the game for official release.

Second Dimension recently launched a Kickstarter to raise funds for the project, and they’re aiming to reach $30,000 by Tuesday, November 8. Pledges of $40 or more will score you a Super Nintendo cartridge of Socks the Cat ($20 will get you a version to play on an emulator), and you’ll receive additional goodies if you contribute extra cash. If the game receives full funding, it’s slated for a July 2017 release—thankfully, long after election season is over.

[h/t Game Informer]

Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.

October 16, 2016 – 6:00am

October 16, 2016

Watch This Awkward 1956 Documentary About Cartooning

Chris Higgins

filed under: Comics, retro, video

Image credit:

YouTube // wdtvlive42 – Archive Footage

You know you’re in for 10 minutes of awkwardness when the robotic narrator says in sleepy monotone, “People are attracted to cartoons because they love to laugh.” Moments later, the narrator tells us that circles are the key to cartooning. It’s just circles all the way down, folks.

When I was a kid, I used a series of “How to Draw” books that promised I’d be able to draw all kinds of amazing things, typically starting with a few circles. I didn’t put in much effort (let’s be honest) and I never became an amazing artist either. In this 1956 film, we get the film version of those books, minus any verve whatsoever. There is virtually no music, and long stretches of awkward silence accompany footage of an unnamed cartoonist sketching stuff. There is also a serious obsession with “circles,” but I would argue that they mean “arcs” and “ovals” in many cases.

The most interesting (and useful) part of this video comes just after the four-minute mark, when we see how cartoonists can sketch facial expressions by examining their own faces in a mirror. By watching small movements of the eyes, eyebrows, and mouth, you can communicate a lot!

If you’re ready for a nap—ahem, I mean a vintage lesson on cartooning!— just turn this on.

October 16, 2016 – 4:00am

October 16, 2016

10 Facts About Webster’s Dictionary for Dictionary Day

Paul Anthony Jones

October 16 is World Dictionary Day, marking the birthday of the great American lexicographer Noah Webster. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1758, it was Webster’s two-volume American Dictionary of the English Language that truly earned him his place in linguistic history, and a reputation as the foremost lexicographer of American English. To mark the occasion, here are 10 facts about the dictionary without which Dictionary Day would not exist.

1. IT WASN’T WEBSTER’S FIRST BOOK ABOUT LANGUAGE …

Following his studies at Yale in the late 1700s, Webster had initially hoped to become a lawyer, but a lack of funds held him back from pursuing his chosen career and he instead ended up teaching. It was then that he became horrified of the poor quality of school textbooks on offer, and took it upon himself to produce his own. The result, A Grammatical Institute of the English Language—nicknamed the “Blue-Backed Speller,” because of its characteristic cover—was published in 1783 and remained the standard language textbook in American schools for the next century.

2. … OR EVEN HIS FIRST DICTIONARY.

Webster had published a less exhaustive dictionary, entitled A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, in 1806. Although considered little more than preparation for the much larger project that lay ahead, Webster’s 1806 effort still defined an impressive 37,000 words, and is credited with being the first major dictionary in history to list I and J, and U and V, as separate letters. He began work on his American Dictionary the following year.

3. IT TOOK HIM 22 YEARS TO COMPLETE (FOR GOOD REASON).

Webster reportedly finished compiling his dictionary in 1825, and continued to edit and improve it for a further three years; he was 70 years old when his American Dictionary of the English Language was finally published in 1828. There was good reason for the delay, however: Webster had learned 26 languages—including the likes of Sanskrit, Ancient Greek and Old English—in the process.

4. IT WAS THE BIGGEST DICTIONARY EVER WRITTEN.

Webster’s 37,000-word Compendious Dictionary (1806) had listed around 5000 entries fewer than what was at the time the longest English dictionary available: Samuel Johnson’s 42,000-word Dictionary of the English Language (1755). But with the publication of the American Dictionary, Johnson’s record was obliterated: running to two volumes, Webster’s 1828 dictionary defined a staggering 70,000 words, around half of which had never been included in an English dictionary before.

5. NOT ALL OF HIS SPELLING REFORMS HIT THE MARK.

In compiling his dictionaries, Webster famously took the opportunity to make his case for spelling reform. As he wrote in the introduction to his American Dictionary, “It has been my aim in this work … to ascertain the true principles of the language, in its orthography and structure; to purify it from some palpable errors, and reduce the number of its anomalies.”

A great many of Webster’s suggestions—like taking the U out of words like colour and honour, and clipping words like dialogue and catalogue—took hold, and still continue to divide British and American English to this day. Others, however, were less successful. Among his less popular suggestions, Webster advocated removing the B from thumb, the E from give, and the S from island, and he proposed that daughter should be spelled “dawter,” porpoise should be spelled “porpess,” and tongue should be spelled “tung.”

6. SOME OF THE WORDS WERE MAKING THEIR DEBUTS IN PRINT.

Besides recommending updating English spelling, Webster made a point of including a number of quintessentially American words in his dictionaries, many of which had never been published in dictionaries before. Among them were the likes of skunk, hickory, applesauce, opossum, chowder and succotash.

7. WORDS BEGINNING WITH X WERE SUDDENLY A THING.

Samuel Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary had contained no words at all beginning with X. (“X is a letter,” he wrote at the bottom of page 2308, “which, though found in Saxon words, begins no word in the English language.”) Webster’s 1806 Compendious Dictionary increased that figure by one with xebec, the name of a type of Mediterranean sailing vessel. But in his American Dictionary, Webster included a total of 13 entries under X, namely xanthid and xanthide (a chemical compound), xanthogene (the base of a new acid), xebec, xerocollyrium (an eye-salve), xeromyrum (a dry ointment), xerophagy (the eating of dry food), xerophthalmy (the medical name for dry eyes), xiphias (a swordfish), xiphoid (a piece of cartilage at the bottom of the breast bone), xylgography (wood engraving), and xyster (a bone-scraper), as well as the letter X itself (“the twenty-fourth letter of the English alphabet … [having] the sound of ks”).

8. WEBSTER PREDICTED THE UNITED STATES’ POPULATION BOOM.

In 1828, the population of the United States was roughly 13 million; by 1928, that figure had increased nine-fold to more than 120 million, and today the US is home to around 320,000,000 people. Despite writing at a turbulent time in the country’s history, Webster somehow predicted the future expansion of America’s population almost perfectly. In the introduction to his American Dictionary, he wrote:

It has been my aim in this work, now offered to my fellow citizens, to ascertain the true principles of the language … and in this manner, to furnish a standard of our vernacular tongue, which we shall not be ashamed to bequeath to three hundred millions of people, who are destined to occupy, and I hope, to adorn the vast territory within our jurisdiction.

It was an oddly accurate prediction, and one that he reiterated under the word tongue (or rather, /tung), which he defined as “the whole sum of words used by a particular nation. The English tongue, within two hundred years, will probably be spoken by two or three hundred millions of people in North America.”

9. ITS PUBLICATION INSPIRED A CHANGE IN THE COPYRIGHT LAWS.

The publication of Webster’s dictionary—as well as his own newfound celebrity—led to a major change in United States law that provided indelible security for all writers and authors. In 1831, Webster was invited to the White House to dine with President Andrew Jackson, and subsequently to give a lecture to the House of Representatives. He took the opportunity to lobby the House to change United States copyright law, which at the time protected writers’ work only for a total of 14 years. The result was the Copyright Act of 1831, which extended writers’ protection to a total of 28 years with the option to apply for a further 14 years’ copyright after that.

10. IT WAS A SUCCESS … BUT NOT ENOUGH OF A SUCCESS.

The American Dictionary sold a quietly impressive 2500 copies—priced between $15 and $20 (roughly $350 and $480 today). But high printing and binding costs meant that even these sales weren’t enough to make the dictionary all that profitable, and consequently, at the age of 82, Webster was forced to mortgage his home in New Haven to finance an extended 2nd edition (including a further 5,000 new words) in 1841. Sadly, it failed to capitalize on the previous edition’s modest success.

Webster died two years later on May 28, 1843, after which booksellers George and Charles Merriam bought all unsold copies of Webster’s 2nd edition—crucially, along with the rights to publish revised editions in future. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary was born.

October 16, 2016 – 2:00am

October 16, 2016

Resin Acorn Necklaces Hold Little Bits of Nature Inside

Rebecca OConnell

filed under: design, fashion, nature

Image credit:

Etsy

London-based artist Anna Buttonsy offers up acorn-shaped jewelry that holds miniature scenes of nature inside. With the magic of resin, Buttonsy is able to capture small moments in time, like blooming flowers and flying dragonflies.

The plastic pendants—dyed in colors like blue, pink, or red—have real acorn tops and hand-molded, clear resin bodies. Inside each transparent acorn, you can find anything from dandelion seeds to flower petals. You can see Buttonsy’s full collection on the Etsy store ButtonsyJewellery.

[h/t My Modern Met Selects]

Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.

October 16, 2016 – 12:00am

October 16, 2016

15 Vintage Recipe Collections to Explore

Allison C Meier

filed under: Food, Lists

Image credit:

Pieter Claesz via Wikimedia Commons // Public domain

Cookbooks and recipe collections don’t just record the delicacies and comfort food of the past, but also reflect social trends, immigration, and industrialization over the centuries. Each of these online resources offers a chef’s bounty of historic gastronomy, from 17th-century roasted peacock (served in its feathered skin) to broiled iceberg lettuce salad from the 1980s.

1. FEEDING AMERICA: THE HISTORIC AMERICAN COOKBOOK PROJECT

MSU Libraries // Public Domain

Amelia Simmons’s American Cookery is considered the first book by an American about American food, and is the earliest publication in Michigan State University Library’s Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project. The online project, started in 2001, focuses on 76 cookbooks from the library’s collections dating from the 18th to early 20th century. You can explore a glossary of old cooking terms and images of antique cooking implements, just in case you need to track down a sugar nipper, salamander, or centrifugal ice cream freezer for your classic cuisine.

2. WELLCOME LIBRARY’S RECIPE BOOKS

Recipe books were not always just about food. Often home remedies were included too, like the 1621 recipe collection of Grace Acton, which followed up an elaborate roasted peacock recipe with a bedwetting treatment that involved boiling a mouse in urine. The eccentric collection is among the Wellcome Library’s trove of online recipe books, which are mainly from the 16th to 19th centuries and demonstrate how cookbooks were a personal connection between food and medicine. The 17th-century recipe book of Lady Ann Fanshawe, for instance, has notes on a red powder she used after a miscarriage, mingling with one of the earliest known recipes for ice cream.

3. THE HENRY FORD’S HISTORIC RECIPE BANK

The Henry Ford // Public Domain

The Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Michigan, has an online Historic Recipe Bank neatly arranged so you can explore by category (whether appetizers or poultry) and era (from the 1700s to the 1990s). The resource mainly highlights American cuisine, including the 1894 Mrs. Rorer’s Sandwiches, the first tome to focus on the American sandwich; the 1932 Macy’s Cook Book and Kitchen Guide for the Busy Woman with its economic pot roast and graham bread; and the 1960s vegetarian touchstone Diet for a Small Planet.

4. MILWAUKEE PUBLIC LIBRARY’S HISTORIC RECIPE FILE

Hundreds of recipes were clipped from newspapers by librarians at Milwaukee Public Library from the 1960s to the 1980s. Wisconsin residents could telephone to enquire on the directions for Beer-Cheese Bites, Broiled Iceberg Salad (made with a cup of mayonnaise), or the sturdy Breta Griem’s Cathedral Fruitcake, which can survive in a refrigerator for a year. Now you can access over 200 of these concoctions in the library’s Historic Recipe File.

5. THE RECIPES PROJECT

The Recipe Project // Public Domain

The Recipes Project is an ongoing collaboration by international scholars to delve into the past through historic recipes, whether for charms, food, or medicine. Their recent explorations include 18th-century perfume, medieval toothache cures, and recipes with plants in Roman Egypt. The site also regularly interviews librarians and curators about their recipe collections, such as the New York Academy of Medicine Library and the University of Pennsylvania Library.

6. HANDWRITTEN RECIPES

Bookseller Michael Popek regularly updates the Handwritten Recipes blog with scrawled recipes he finds wedged in used titles. He published some of them in a 2012 book, and continues to add to the archive of ephemera with items such as a recipe for hot chocolate from the 1902 The Strollers by Frederic S. Isham, a notecard with a recipe for fudge discovered in the 1903 Capital Stories by American Authors, and a worn recipe for cheezy pretzels that was wedged in a 1914 copy of P. G. Wodehouse’s The Little Nugget.

7. SZATHMARY RECIPE PAMPHLET DIGITAL COLLECTION

University of Iowa Libraries // Public domain

From 1880 to 1930, cooking radically changed alongside industrialization, which increased commercial food in diets and expanded the availability of products. To encourage consumer loyalty you might have received a “Now you’re cooking with tomato paste” pamphlet in the mail from Contadina, or an “Around the kitchen clock with walnuts” brochure from the California Walnut Growers Association. The Szathmary Recipe Pamphlet Digital Collection, amassed by Hungarian-born chef Louis Szathmary at the University of Iowa Libraries, has over 4000 recipe pamphlets from these decades of change.

8. FOUR POUNDS FLOUR

On Four Pounds Flour, “historic gastronomist” Sarah Lohman deciphers recipes, mainly from 18th and 19th century American cuisine, and attempts to recreate or interpret the obscure meals. She recently purchased a bay leaf plant just to blend 18th and 19th century ice creams, cooked eggs for seven hours as if preparing for a 19th-century Jewish Sabbath, and tracked down the origins of that Thanksgiving staple: sweet potato casserole. Her upcoming publication Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine will further delve into this savory history.

9. DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Duke University Libraries // Public Domain

Among the formidable Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920 collection at Duke University Libraries are hundreds of booklets and cookbooks published to promote food products as part of modern consumer culture. The 1920s “How Phyllis Grew Thin” has lean dishes throughout its pages, but is basically one long advertisement for the quack medicine Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound pills; “Sixty One Uses for Salt with Some Comment on the Kind of Salt to Use” was distributed by the Diamond Crystal Salt Co.; and the 1916 “Excellent Recipes for Baking Raised Breads” extolled Fleischmann’s Yeast.

10. SERVICE THROUGH SPONGE CAKE

The Indiana University Library and Indianapolis Public Library joined together to create Service through Sponge Cake. Launched in 2010, it celebrates DIY cookbooks from churches, community organizations, and synagogues, where everyone suggested their favorite cookies or casseroles. The resource includes 200 Years of Black Cookery from 1976 by the Indianapolis Black Bicentennial Committee, 1944 baking from the 4-H Club, and a 1975 Spanish & Latin-American Cookbook from the Hispano-American Center of Indianapolis.

11. TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

The historical cookbooks collection online at Texas Tech University Libraries Digital Collections definitely has a Lonestar State feel. One title is the 1914 Cooking Tough Meats, with a chicken fricasse “for a tough fowl” and directions on how to make mutton stew from neck pieces. Yet there’s a lot to explore beyond such carnivorous conundrums, like the exhaustive 1978 Sixteen Cottage Cheese Recipes, and the patriotic World War II-era Food Is Ammunition put out by the Georgia Agricultural Extension Service.

12. VIRGINIA TECH CULINARY HISTORY COLLECTION

Virginia Tech’s Special Collections // Public Domain

Virginia Tech’s History of Food & Drink Collection features several hundred publications on the culinary arts, mainly from the 19th and early 20th century, although there’s also a digitized recipe book from 1731 [PDF] that opens with guidelines on how to pickle everything from a “great cucumber” to kidney beans. Among the vintage cookbooks, you can also find a 1930s cocktail manual, and the 1923 Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-dish Dainties which answers such pressing questions as “are midnight suppers hygienic?” alongside its recipes for “pineapple-and-cream-cheese salad, Easter style” and eggs à la king.

13. GASTRONOMY BOOKS FROM THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The Library of Congress selected works from its cookery collections within the Rare Books & Special Collections to make available online, with material dating back to the 15th century. The gastronomy books include The Accomplish’d lady’s delight in preserving, physick, beautifying, and cookery from 1675, with directions for dressing fowl as well as “Excellent receipts in physick and chirurgery.” The 1498 Apicius. De re coquinaria. Milan, Guillermus Le Signerre is the earliest surviving collection of recipes from Europe, believed to have evolved from a 1st century version compiled in Rome. And Lydia Maria Child’s 1829 Frugal housewife. Dedicated to those who are not ashamed of economy represents the thrifty work of one of the first women to support herself as a writer.

14. INTERNET ARCHIVE

Internet Archive Book Images via Flickr // Public Domain

The Internet Archive nonprofit digital library is a great resource for just about any media, cookery included. A search for cookbooks on the site turns up over 1000 results including examples from libraries and rare book collections. Among the vintage and historic publications are a California Mexican-Spanish cookbook from 1914, part of the University of California Libraries; a 1928 compendium of “salad secrets” from McGill University Library; and the 1913 The White House Cook Book, also from University of California Libraries.

15. BRITISH LIBRARY’S BOOKS FOR COOKS

The British Library’s online Books for Cooks is a chronological exploration from medieval banquets adorned with pastry ships to frugal Victorians in London recycling their coffee grounds. Publications with highlighted recipes include the 1595 The Widdowes Treasure, which advises on killing lice as well as preventing mold on pears; the 1670 The Queen-like Closet with recipes for calves’ foot pie and oyster pie; and the 1729 The Queen’s Royal Cookery, in which you can attempt to learn how to master the collaring of an eel.

October 15, 2016 – 10:15pm

GADGETS

KITCHEN

HOME

HEALTH AND BEAUTY

OFFICE, SCHOOL, AND ART

OUTDOORS, GARDEN, AND SPORT

ELECTRONICS

TOOLS

WHY A FULL MOON IS FULL

WHAT’S IN A NAME

HOW TO SEE IT

1. IT WASN’T WEBSTER’S FIRST BOOK ABOUT LANGUAGE …

2. … OR EVEN HIS FIRST DICTIONARY.

3. IT TOOK HIM 22 YEARS TO COMPLETE (FOR GOOD REASON).

4. IT WAS THE BIGGEST DICTIONARY EVER WRITTEN.

5. NOT ALL OF HIS SPELLING REFORMS HIT THE MARK.

6. SOME OF THE WORDS WERE MAKING THEIR DEBUTS IN PRINT.

7. WORDS BEGINNING WITH X WERE SUDDENLY A THING.

8. WEBSTER PREDICTED THE UNITED STATES’ POPULATION BOOM.

9. ITS PUBLICATION INSPIRED A CHANGE IN THE COPYRIGHT LAWS.

10. IT WAS A SUCCESS … BUT NOT ENOUGH OF A SUCCESS.

1. FEEDING AMERICA: THE HISTORIC AMERICAN COOKBOOK PROJECT

2. WELLCOME LIBRARY’S RECIPE BOOKS

3. THE HENRY FORD’S HISTORIC RECIPE BANK

4. MILWAUKEE PUBLIC LIBRARY’S HISTORIC RECIPE FILE

5. THE RECIPES PROJECT

6. HANDWRITTEN RECIPES

7. SZATHMARY RECIPE PAMPHLET DIGITAL COLLECTION

8. FOUR POUNDS FLOUR

9. DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

10. SERVICE THROUGH SPONGE CAKE

11. TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

12. VIRGINIA TECH CULINARY HISTORY COLLECTION

13. GASTRONOMY BOOKS FROM THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

14. INTERNET ARCHIVE

15. BRITISH LIBRARY’S BOOKS FOR COOKS