Yesterday I spent $6 on a vintage 1936 cookbook I already have a copy of: "All About Home Baking", by the General Foods Corp.

But I couldn't resist this one. It's full of the previous owners handwritten recipes (Daffodil Cake, Crazy Choc Cake, for example), and also has newspaper recipes and recipes typed on onion skin paper pasted inside. 

Such evidence of a cookbook that was well-loved and used is irresistible.

Plus I always feel sorry for these orphan books, their previous owners dead and gone. They need homes, and I am apparently the sap to give them one.

Anyway, here's one of the recipes. I love the WW II aspect of this cake, as it places it so well in a specific time and place. I love how, apparently, putting the word "Victory" in front of a recipe automatically makes it patriotic and American and...good and noble and assuring of doing one's part. 

Wish I could post more than one picture here--pasted underneath this is another article with recipes, which talks about how "sugar rationing is daily closer to becoming a reality". Maybe I'll post that one tomorrow.

And damn, but doesn't this banana cake sound good? I'm actually thinking of trying to make it.