May 2010 | Rebecca Rego Barry

Call Out for Cookbooks

The Southern Food and Beverage Museum (SoFAB) located in New Orleans lost roughly 900 cookbooks from its collection during Hurricane Katrina. It's now looking to replenish and improve its collection of cookbooks and menus by asking people to dust off their bookshelves and send their cookbooks to NOLA. Hardcover, softcover, spiral-bound cookbooks of any taste or region are needed and will become a fully accessible collection as part of the New Orleans Public Library. SoFAB also hopes to create an archive of Southern menus; this collection is housed at the University of New Orleans, where students catalog them. Chris Smith, director of collections at SoFAB said, "We treat cookbooks and menus as artifacts."

So if you have cookbooks or Southern menus that are under-used in your house, consider donating them to this good cause. Send them directly to Chris Smith at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, One Poydras Street, #169, New Orleans, LA 70130-1657.