The book by E. Molokhovets "A gift to young housewives", 1912

An original and quite rare book in very good collector's condition. Hard modern leather binding with gold stitching. The format is 165*250 mm. The volume is 824 pages. Dirt on the back cover, fox spots. Guarantee of authenticity.

"A gift to young housewives, or a means to reduce household expenses", or simply "A Gift to young Housewives" is a cookbook written by the classic of Russian culinary literature, E. I. Molokhovets (1831-1918), and first published on May 20, 1861. The book has gone through dozens of reprints and was one of the most popular books in the pre-revolutionary household. In the 50 years since the first edition was published, the circulation has reached 300 thousand copies. The main part of the book is a collection of various recipes for home cooking, the number of which was constantly changing due to the fact that Molokhovets made changes and additions to each new edition. The 1861 edition had about 1,500 recipes, and the 1897 edition had 3,218[2]. The 1904 edition (24th) contained 4,163 recipes. Among the recipes described in the book, there are both simple and exquisite expensive dishes, such as suckling pig, sterlet's ear with boiled Clicquot champagne or burbot livers, crab paste, game dishes and others.

The book contains sections on techniques and various nuances of cooking, working tools, dishes, ovens, relationships with servants, tables of weights and measures, table setting, vegetarian and lenten menus, nutritional value of products and other useful tips. It also provides recommendations for saving money and cooking time.

The book "A Gift to Young Housewives" turned out to be an extremely successful commercial project <...> The fraudsters' activities were facilitated by the fact that the first editions of the book were signed not with the full name, but with the four letters "E. M...ts". The Moscow bookseller Johanson hired a teacher for 500 rubles, who compiled a compilation and called it "A real gift to young housewives," and on the title page instead of the author's name were the letters "E. M.N." <...> To combat fake publications, Elena Ivanovna began signing books with her full name. It didn't help much. Soon there was a "New gift for young housewives" by E. Morovich, then an "Expensive gift for young housewives" by Malkovets and, finally, a "Complete gift for young housewives", the author of which was Morokhovtsev. It was written on the last book that it was already being published in the seventh edition with a total circulation of 200,000 copies. <...> Fake books were much cheaper than Molokhovets' original works, and she complained that the reader might decide that the book was no longer in demand and the author was selling it on the cheap. <...> Three years later, the "Newest Cookbook" appeared, which was NOT compiled by Molokhovets. The letters "NOT" could be read both as the initials of the author, after which the negligent typographer forgot to put the dots, and as a mocking indication that Elena Molokhovets had nothing to do with the book.

In the Soviet era, the book, aimed at the middle class and the aristocracy, was accused of "bourgeoisness" and "decadence." Nevertheless, she continued to be popular. In 1939, with a circulation of 100,000 copies, the first edition of the famous and richly illustrated "Book on Delicious and Healthy Food" was published, designed to completely replace the "obsolete" book "A Gift for young housewives ..." and satisfy the needs of housewives of the Soviet Union. Currently, old copies of the book, published before the revolution, are of antique second-hand book value. The entire book and individual recipes from it are again being published by modern Russian publishers.