Cookbooks as a social and historical document. A Scottish case study

Cookbooks are not only instructional manuals for the culinary arts and repositories for traditional dishes, they also reflect food habits of a population, act as historical markers of major events, and record technological advances in a society. Evidence of this was gathered from Scottish cookbooks, published between 1890 and 1990, listed in the catalogue of printed books in the National Library of Scotland. Textual analysis of the cookbooks included an examination of their authors, audience, and contents. The results validated the claim that a cookbook can be regarded as a socio-historic and cultural document.