Julie Bimbach

The little cookbook for the doll's kitchen , 21st edition 1884

Doll stove made of sheet metal heated with alcohol, Germany around 1900

Julie Bimbach (born before 1854, date of death unknown) was a German cookbook author. She was one of the first authors of cookbooks for children in the 19th century.

Julie Bimbach's life data are unknown. The little cookbook for the doll's kitchen that made it famous was first published in 1854 by Raw in Nuremberg. It is considered the first doll's cookbook in Germany. Christine Charlotte Riedl's cookbook for dolls appeared in the same year, while Henriette Davidis's was published two years later.

Cookbook for the doll's kitchen

Julie Bimbach said about the genesis of the cookbook: “ The approaching Christmas Eve gave me the opportunity to write this little cookbook. A large cooking stove had already arrived for my girls from my distant grandmother, and when I had been looking at the spacious vessels with the pretty spirit lamp for some time, I had the idea of ​​writing a little cookbook with which the children could play the first instructions Culinary art could get. “Before it came to the printed version of the cookbook, the handwritten puppet cookbook spread among Julie Bimbach's circle of friends and was copied many times. The Kochbüchlein had a total of 37 editions and was published until 1930. In 1859 a sequel was published, which was published six times by 1900.

On 62 pages, the cookbook contained recipes, but also entire menu suggestions. The recipes were "scaled down" versions of Friederike Luise Löffler's cookbook . Compared to Henriette Davidis' dolls cookbook , the cooking instructions in the little cookbook are relatively complicated and use quantities that are probably rather difficult for children to measure. Perhaps this is why Henriette Davidis simplified the recipes for her doll's cookbook, which was published two years later, even more, and thus manages almost entirely without dimensions.

Example from the chapter "Soups": “Beer soup” “Take a sturdy knife tip full of flour, stir it in the pan with 1/4 cup milk until smooth, mix 4 teaspoons full of egg yolks, some whole Zimm, 1/2 cup beer and enough sugar to make the soup tastes very sweet and let it come to the boil while stirring constantly. "

The doll's cookbook was a completely new type of book that was soon very popular and in great demand. Just two years later, when she published her doll's cookbook, Henriette Davidis was able to play off two publishers against each other because of the fee. Doll cookbooks found a niche in the market: in the mid-19th century, doll stoves appeared as instructive toys for girls, which were now being set up in more and more middle-class households at Christmas time and were very popular with children. In order to be able to use this stoves, the doll's cookbooks with their adapted quantities and the recipes tailored to the children's abilities and the technical requirements of the stoves that can be heated with alcohol were an ideal addition.

expenditure

• Little cookbook for the doll's kitchen or first instructions for cooking for girls aged 8-14. According to Löffler's cookbook. Raw, Nuremberg, 1854. (37 editions up to 1930, only one (known) copy of the first edition is still present)
• Cookbook for the doll's kitchen. Or first instructions for the preparation of sweet dishes, baked goods and warm drinks for girls aged 8-14 years, Raw, Nuremberg, 1859. (Continuation volume, 6 editions up to 1900) ( Google digitized version )
• Reprint of the 30th edition of the little cookbook for the doll kitchen or instructions for cooking for girls aged 8-14 in the appendix by: Reinhard Schmidt (Ed.): Kürnbacher Kochkunst, Kürnbach, 2005. (together with a reprint of the cookbook by Friederike Löffler )

literature

• Eckehard and Walter Methler: From Henriette Davidis to Erna Horn. Wetter / Ruhr 2001. ISBN 3-9810130-4-2 Exhaustive bibliography.

Notes and evidence

1. ↑ Methler / Methler, p. 124.
2. ↑ Cookbook for the doll kitchen , vol. 1, p. 9.
3. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.