Perfect? Pshaw. Just Cook It.

These days, many blockbuster cookbooks trade mostly in vibes: A celebrity’s favorite dishes. A restaurant’s signature menu. A “lifestyle.” They promise access to a life and a dinner table that’s a little bit glossier, a little bit fresher, a little bit more stylish than most dinner tables that most of us have ever sat at. They make us feel hopeful, aspirational, desirous. But do they solve real-world problems? Not often enough.

It wasn’t always so. My own modest archives offer a rich lode of nearly-forgotten cookbooks that zero in on real-life concerns of their times. Marion Harland’s ​Common Sense in the Household: A Manual of Practical Housewifery​ (1876). Cora, Rose and Bob Brown’s ​10,000 Snacks​ (1937). Poppy Cannon’s ​The Can-Opener Cookbook​ (1951). These books, and countless others, spoke to what author ​Edouard de Pomiane called “the rhythm of modern life.”​ (Whatever “modern” means to you.)