Heading: (1955 1st Thai-American Cook Book)
Author:
Title: First Thai-American Cook Book, by the Bangkok YWCA, 1955
Place Published: Bangkok, Thailand
Publisher:
Date Published: 1955
Description:

Pierson, Sherleigh G., editor. Cook Book, YWCA, Bangkok, Thailand (Bangkok, 1955) Third Edition. Original wrappers. 105+86pp. Illustrated with line drawings and some advertisements; and: Mrs.Carl Capen, editor. Cook Book YWCA Bangkok 1961 (Bangkok, 1961) Seventh[?] Edition. Original decorative cloth binding. Illustrated with line drawings and pictorial ads. 147+144pp.

Not until 1984 was the "first complete, authentic Thai cookbook" published in America. However, the first English-language Thai cook book (written by a Thai Princess) appeared in Bangkok in 1952, and the following year, the Bangkok YWCA published what appears to be the first Thai-American cook book, edited by the wife of an American economist who worked for the UN aid mission, with text in both English and Thai. The rare 1955 third edition, with some 150 recipes, sold as a fund-raiser for the Day Nursery, is probably the first surviving edition of the series as neither of the earlier imprints appear in WorldCat, which locates only one copy of the 1955, at Michigan State University. By 1961, this popular bi-lingual Cook Book - published by another Thai Princess - had become much more elaborate, with 250 recipes, table setting diagrams, serving instructions, cooking terms, drawings by three illustrators, and with "improved paper and handsome covers".