Leatherbound manuscript. Pasted in newspaper clippings in German and English, and pasted in handwritten notes. The last ten pages are blank. Blue lined paper and printed page numbers. Last pages index with green taps and gold lettering of diffrent food groups. Sewn headbands.

This book is a German-American handwritten cookbook, There are 496 pages plus an extensive index with 18 preprinted headings on tabs starting with appetizers, soups, fish and going on to ragouts, roasts, poultry, venison and game, sauces, vegetables, salads, and compotes (stewed fruits) and finishing with warm and cold desserts, cakes, pastries, bread, preserves, and variety dishes. It is definitely a very extensive cooking school study book. It is written in the same hand throughout the first 282 pages and followed by 17 pages of clippings and handwritten recipes in other hands. The book is empty from page 299 to page 496, followed by the index. The printed clippings from German-American newspapers and magazines indicate the time frame of 1870 to 1900. Unfortunately throughout the book there are no names or locations mentioned and the clippings are not identified. The last few clippings are from later dates, some of them perhaps from publications from the 1910's to 1920's. Each meal starts with an appetizer and/or soup, followed with a main course item, one or two side dishes and finished with a third course which could be, depending on the menu, a simple stewed fruit or an elaborate torte. Almost all the recipes are German in origin, with a very few French and only one or two American dishes. Among the appetizers are ham souffle, fish filets in bechamel, lobster, aspic with inlaid vegetables and meats, and spinach cakes. Among the soups are kidney soup, potato soup, several vegetable soups from mixed vegetables, tomato soup, wax bean soup, and celery soup. The section on fish is not too large, and nothing is unusual among the ragouts. We find goulash, pheasant ragout, and ragout fin. Among the roasts we find many dishes of the time: roast fresh beef tongue; roast pickled beef tongue, and several pork, veal and beef roasts. On the page of venison there is only one venison listed. Among the vegetables there are many cabbage and sauerkraut dishes. Practically every member of the cabbage family from kohlrabi to savory cabbage and brussel sprouts to cauliflower is represented.