Introduction
Images above: top left: Craig Claiborne outside Cafe Max, Paris France, 1950s, photographer unknown; top right: menu by Jacques Pépin, Paris, 1958; bottom left: hand-painted menu by Jacques Pépin, 2012; bottom right: US propaganda poster from World War I promoting the consumption of corn products, 1918, artist: Lloyd Harrison.
The Special Collections Department at the Boston University Libraries contains significant archival collections, printed volumes, periodicals, and other resources pertaining to the history of cuisine, cooking, nutrition, and agriculture in the United States and around the world. This guide is intended to make these holdings easier to access.
The guide is divided into two sections:
- Archival Collections covers the papers and collections of relevant individuals and organizations, all held in the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center. Please note that there is more material in the Center that pertains to the topics of social, economic, and political oppression and liberation, so we encourage you to search the Boston University Special Collections and Archives ArchivesSpace for additional resources.
- Selected Books covers relevant books and bound volumes, focusing on items both specifically available in the Special Collections Rare Book repository and related to the Archival Collections above. Many more items can be found by searching the Boston University Libraries Online Catalog.
Accessing the Collections
For more information on accessing these resources, please read our Guidelines for Access and Use and Visiting the Gotlieb Center.
Related LibGuides
The primary Boston University Libraries LibGuide related to gastronomy, with links to many more resources within BU and elsewhere, is the Introduction to Gastronomy LibGuide. This guide is focused on archival and rare book sources in this subject area.
