The East-West Book of Rice Cookery by Marian Tracy - 1952

This hard-to-find cookbook (the few copies available are mostly in the UK) should be in every foodies kitchen. Bright teal hardbound cloth boards are decorated with yellow text and various types of rice stalks on the front cover and spine. The spine and boards are in very nice condition with only slight wear at the top and bottom of the back strip and board edges, except for the rear top corner that has a crease, probably from being dropped. The interior pages also show the same light crease at the top corner on most of the interior pages. Even with crease damage all the corners are sharp with only light wear. Spine is straight, firmly attached to the text block, with no cracking to the endpapers. Text block is solid with all pages firmly attached. All interior pages are clean with no tears, cracks, or previous owner marks. Each chapter and many recipes have a black and white illustration by Burgess. The author covers the typical food categories of recipes but with unique and interesting recipes. Marian Coward Tracey was the author of numerous unique style cookbooks. Marguerite (Clawson) Burgess (1913 - ?) had a long career as a painter, lithographer teacher, designer specializing in landscape and figure drawings. She studied at the Corcoran Art School, The Phillips Memorial Gallery School of Art, and with C. Law Watkins. She exhibited at many important galleries during the 1940's and her paintings are in numerous permanent collections.