Endangered Treasures Program

Cookbook Preservation

The worlds diverse culinary heritages are one of the greatest treasures of the twenty-first century, yet some are in danger of disappearing through increasing globalization, multiculturalism, and the simple ravages of time. The Endangered Treasures program, founded in 2002 by a generous grant from KitchenAid, funds efforts to preserve these heritages through library grants to restore crumbling culinary manuscripts and rare books. Among its most exciting projects was the funding of the restoration of the worlds oldest extant cookery manuscript, the 9th century Apicius manuscript held by The New York Academy of Medicine.

If you have a project you would like considered for an “Endangered Treasures” grant please email treasures@theculinarytrust.org

Please click here to see a list of previously restored treasures.

STORIES ABOUT FOOD: Preserving Culinary Heritage, Improving Nutrition and Connecting Generations

Click here to see the rest of our stories!

Capturing foods of past and present – today’s and tomorrow’s culinary heritage – is the inspiration behind the Trust’s 2012 initiative, Stories About Food. Taking advantage of generous seed money from KitchenAid and working with Narativ, a preeminent developer of workshops that connect individuals through the sharing of personal stories, the Trust piloted a program in New York that brought together high school students and senior adults to elicit memories (and recipes) of foods from their respective childhoods. These stories were videotaped, and recipes were shared, with the goal of creating a unique colloquial archive of culinary heritage. The Narativ methodology is now being adapted so that IACP members, through Kids in the Kitchen and the Food History Committees, will be able to collect stories, growing an archive of culinary history that will stretch back through the twentieth century and look forward to the twenty-first.

KitchenAid is the founding sponsor of The Culinary Trust’s Endangered Treasures Program and provides support for Stories About Food.