First, Add Live Frogs

Old cookbooks provide an intimate look at the ingredients and techniques of cooking’s past, but they often are rare and, when available, expensive. So Amanda Anderson, owner of Acanthus Books in Lake Zurich, Ill., has assembled reprints of several dozen culinary works dating to “The Forme of Cury,” a 15th century manuscript.

Many of the reprints are imported from Great Britain and include “The Accomplisht Cook” by Robert May (1685, $45), a collection of 2,000 recipes, including one for baking frogs live in a pie. When the pie is opened, the frogs leap out, he wrote, and “make the ladies to skip and shreek.”

Another prize is a reprint of “The Epicurean” (1893, $35) by Charles Ranhofer, chef of Delmonico’s Restaurant in New York, with 3,500 recipes. Other books are cheaper.

The books are available by mail order only. For a free catalog, write to Acanthus Books, 830 W. Main St., Suite 150, Lake Zurich, Ill. 60047, or call (708) 726-9811.