From Knox Gelatine: Desserts, Salads, Candies and Frozen Dishes, c.1936
New Theatre (the Lyric) and Store Building for the Blacksburg Realty Company
Hours:
Monday-Friday 8am-5pm & By Appointment
Contact us:
Email: specref@vt.edu
Telephone: 540-231-6308
Twitter: @VT_SCUA
Information for Visitors
Find us online!
Our website
Our digital collections
Our blog
Our LibGuide (Information about us and our collections)
This site includes a variety of culinary, food, foodways, and food culture history resources you can find at Special Collections and University Archives, throughout the Virginia Tech University Libraries, and online through other academic and research institutions. You'll also find a list of other academic and research organizations with significant physical collections. There might even be one near you!
If you have questions about the collection, locating resources, need help with a project, or just want to find a historic recipe for fun, feel free to contact me. Also, I have a new one page resource, created in 2021, for finding materials in our collections, how to find us on social media, and how to learn more about the Food Studies Program at Virginia Tech. You can read it online or download it!
Virginia Tech University Libraries is home to a history of food & drink collecting area of more than 7,000 books and publications, as well as more than 100 manuscript collections. In November 2020, we also took over management of The Food Timeline and the private book collection of the site's late creator, Lynne Olver. The majority of the food and drink collecting area is housed in Special Collections and University Archives. The history of food & drink materials covers a variety of subjects and topics. Specific subsets of this collecting area include:
More broadly speaking, in addition to sharing 350 years of recipes and cookbooks, the history of food & drink collecting area also helps document early American cookery, southern cookery, social history, household management, home remedies, domestic economy/economy history, dietetics/nutrition, customs and eating habits, food processing/preservation, and eating/cooking in wartime. You can read more about the History of Food & Drink materials on our website.