washed down with an eggshell full of butter. An ointment for tumors has “honey, such as is used to lighten porridge,” boiled with herbs, garlic, and pepper. According to the library, it may have been part of an informal recipe book kept by monks. Its survival is something of a miracle, since it was extracted from the original manuscript and turned into the cover of a Latin schoolbook in 1558. The schoolbook survived a fire in 1881 by being thrown out a window.

The Küch- und Keller-Dictionarium has been in Oslo’s library since it opened in 1785. Courtesy of the Deichman Library, credit Frank Michaelsen

The Oslo Public Library

Complete Kitchen and Cellar Dictionary

The Oslo Public Library, known as the Deichman Library, has a 1716 copy of the Complete Kitchen andCellar Dictionary, written by the prolific German writer Paul Jacob Marperger. Lavishly printed and more than a thousand pages long, the title page promises a book “in which all sorts of food and drinks, known and unknown, are described.” It belonged to a Norwegian lawyer named Johan Fredrik Bartholin, who donated it to the city of Christiania (the former name for Oslo) in 1784. The book has been in the Deichman collection since it opened in 1785.

Glasse tended to talk trash about French cooking. Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia

The Free Library of Philadelphia

The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy

Hannah Glasse’s compendium of culinary and household recipes, including one “to make a Currey the India Way,” made it a favorite in British kitchens and in colonies