Virginia Tech Special Collections and University Archives is home to a collection relating to the history of food & drink of more than 4,600 books and publications (with additional items available in the library’s circulating collection), as well as six dozen manuscript collections. In addition to sharing 350 years of recipes (with an emphasis on Virginia), the collection also helps document social history, household management, domestic economy, and food processing/technology.
In September 2011, we started the blog to share items from the collection with larger audience. Every week, you’ll learn about an item in the collection. Throughout the week, we also post news stories relating to food and food history, upcoming events (usually around Blacksburg and the greater Roanoke area, but not always!), recipes from historic cookbooks (the good AND the bad), and other food-related things that catch our attention. In general, posts are written by archivist and part-time foodie, Kira Dietz, so you can blame all typos, puns (oh, there will be many), and other mistakes squarely on her!
Feel free to contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions about specific items or the history of food & drink in general. You can also see more about the collection on our website.
What's Cookin' @ Special Collections?! 
I just about fell off my chair when I saw you followed me! I just told my boss to look at your fantastic blog last week. I love what you all post, and I think your site design looks great. I can’t wait to read more!
Thanks so much, Rebecca! You’re getting into some great research and I can’t wait to see what you learn from other institutions. We hope to launch second blog soon for our Special Collections, too, so keep watching. 🙂
Pingback: An Orange a Day? | What's Cookin' @ Special Collections?!
Fascinating history! Thank you for this blog that is both scholarly and very entertaining.
Very cool! I love books, I love old stuff, I love kitchen stuff. I wish you had a Facebook page for this. Or do you and I couldn’t find it?
Hi, thanks for commenting! We do not currently have a Facebook page, but you can occasionally also find content about the History of Food and Drink Collection on the Virginia Tech University Libraries Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/VTLibraries) and sometimes on Special Collections’ other blog, In Special Collections at Virginia Tech (http://vtspecialcollections.wordpress.com/).
Thanks! I appreciate your reply!
So, just a couple of updates. While we don’t have an official Facebook page for the collection, there is one now for the Peacock Harper Culinary History Friends. This is the group that helped launch the collection and they remain our biggest supporters and donor group. The page includes content from the collection and our blog posts: https://www.facebook.com/culinaryhistory/. We have also recently launched a Twitter account for our entire department, which will include some culinary history: https://twitter.com/VT_SCUA.