Recipes to Remember: UC Davis Library Chinese Cookbooks and San Francisco Chinatown

The UC Davis Library holds the second largest collection of English-language Chinese cookbooks in the United States. This exhibit highlights this unique collection and its connection with San Francisco Chinatown. “Recipes to Remember” is an ongoing project led by the UC Davis Library and the Davis Humanities Institute that explores the connections between contemporary San Francisco Chinatown and the people featured in the historical cookbooks’ texts and images. How can cookbooks be used to discover unwritten stories and memories across generations and communities? This exhibit, curated by graduate students Benjamin Fong and Tianyun Hua, also illustrates the present-day value of libraries’ special collections and archival materials, and their contribution to public scholarship.