Is the 1950 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook Worth Buying Today? An Honest Review.

The book your mother probably cooked from, looked at plainly. What it does well, what it does not, and who should spend the money. By Pam Fournier, Owner of Reading Vintage

Here is the honest answer before you scroll.

Yes, if you want to cook from it or keep it as the family copy. No, if you are buying it because you heard an old cookbook is worth money. The 1950 Betty Crocker Picture Cook Book is a working book, not a payday. There are a lot of copies out there, which is good news for a cook and bad news for anybody hoping to flip it. What makes one copy worth twice another has almost nothing to do with the year on the page and almost everything to do with whether the binding still holds and the pages are all there.

So the real question is not whether the book is good. It is good. The real question is whether the copy in front of you is the one you should buy, and that is what I want to walk you through, because I handle these books and I look at that copyright page for a living.

5 Key Takeaways

1. The 1950 Picture Cook Book earns its reputation on the step by step photographs, which is why it taught so many people to cook.
2. It is a common book, not a scarce one, so condition and completeness drive the price far more than the year does.
3. Buy it if you want to cook from it, hand it down, or match a specific memory. Skip it if you want resale value or tidy modern recipes.
4. Check the binding and the page count before the price. A copy missing pages is not a cheap copy, it is the wrong copy.
5. If you only want the recipes and not the object, a reprint will do the job and cost you less worry.

What the 1950 Betty Crocker Picture Cook Book Actually Is

Let me describe the book rather than the legend.

It is a big general household cookbook from 1950, built around photographs that show you the steps. Not one glamour shot of the finished cake. Pictures of hands doing the thing. How to cut in shortening. What the dough should look like before you stop working it. For somebody who had never cooked, that was the whole point, and it is still the reason people hunt this book down seventy some years later.

It was issued so a cook could lay it flat on the counter, which is why so many copies show up in a ring binder. Later printings and later editions came bound like a regular hardcover. That matters when you shop, because the binding will not tell you the age of what you are holding. I wrote a whole piece on what each format survives in a real kitchen if you want it: ring binder or hardcover Betty Crocker.

One more thing about the title, because it trips people up constantly. Betty Crocker used a solid red cover with the name in white script. The red and white check is Better Homes and Gardens. If you are picturing plaid, you are picturing the other book, and you will want to sort that out before you spend money.

Why This Is Hard to Answer From a Listing

Here is the part that frustrates people, and I hear it most weeks.

You search the title. You get a screen full of copies. They range from under twenty dollars to well over a hundred. Some say first edition. Some say facsimile. Some say revised and enlarged. Some say nothing at all except the title and a price. The photographs are three pictures of a red cover and nothing of the inside.

So you cannot tell what you are looking at. Not because the sellers are lying, mostly, but because this title carried a lot of different books under it over the years. Pages got added. Recipes got rewritten. A facsimile reprint came out that reproduces the 1950 pages on purpose and says so right on it.

That is a real problem and it has a real cost. People buy the newest looking copy because it photographs well, and then the recipe they wanted is not in it, because it was edited out of a later revision. Or they buy the cheapest copy and it arrives with the first forty pages loose in the bottom of the box.

Availability is not the same as the right copy. On this title, that line does more work than almost anywhere else, because there is always a copy available. That is not the hard part.

What the Record Says About Why It Landed in So Many Kitchens

A few facts here are worth knowing, because they explain the book you are holding.

Betty Crocker was not a person. According to MNopedia, published by the Minnesota Historical Society, she was invented in 1921 by the advertising department at the Washburn Crosby Company in Minneapolis. The head of advertising, Samuel Gale, wanted to answer the flood of household questions coming in, but felt the advice should come from a woman. The surname honored a former company director, William G. Crocker.

MNopedia also records that Marjorie Child Husted, a home economist who joined in 1923, carefully shaped the public face of Betty Crocker, led the recipe development, and wrote the radio scripts. And it says plainly what made the 1950 book work: the step by step instructions of the Betty Crocker Picture Cook Book helped make it a best seller.

That is the honest version of this book's history. A company built a trustworthy voice, put real home economists behind the recipes, and then printed a book that showed you the steps instead of just telling you. A new bride in 1952 who had never cooked a roast could follow it. That is why it sold, and that is why it ended up on so many counters.

What I cannot give you is a number. Nobody kept a count of how many American kitchens had this book. If you see a figure like that in a listing, somebody made it up.

Who Should Buy It, and Who Should Skip It

This is the part I actually get asked, so here is my plain take after fifteen years of handling these.

Buy it if you are going to cook from it. The recipes hold up for everyday food and baking. They were written to work in a Michigan kitchen and a Georgia kitchen and get the same result, and they still do. One caution that has nothing to do with the book's quality: food safety guidance has changed since 1950, so check current recommendations for canning times, poultry temperatures, and anything with raw eggs before you follow an old method.

Buy it if you are matching a memory. If your mother cooked from this book, this is the book. A newer general cookbook with better photography will not do that job, not even a little.

Buy it if you want to hand it to somebody. This book is a good thing to give a young cook who is nervous, because it assumes you know nothing and does not make you feel bad about it. A buyer put that better than I can. She wrote: "this is the book that saved me so many times as an inexperienced mother and housekeeper. gifting it to my sons' wives to help them! arrived fast and in good shape."

Skip it if you are buying it as an asset. This is a common book. Plenty of copies survive because people kept them. A clean complete copy in a tight binding holds its value fine, but nobody should buy this expecting it to pay for itself.

Skip it if you want modern recipes. The measurements, the ingredients, and the oven assumptions are from 1950. Some of it reads charming and some of it reads like work. If you want fast weeknight food written for the way people shop now, buy a new book and be happy.

Skip the pricey original if you only want the recipes. A facsimile reprint reproduces the same pages and arrives clean, and you will not wince when you spill on it. I went through that comparison in detail in original 1950 Picture Cook Book or the facsimile reprint.

What I Have on the Shelf Right Now Instead

I want to be straight with you here, because this is a review and a review should be honest about what is in the room.

I do not have a 1950 Picture Cook Book listed as I write this. These come in one at a time from estate sales, and they go. Vintage does not restock neatly.

What I do have is a Betty Crocker from the same family of books, and it is the one I would point a cook toward today: Betty Crocker's New Good and Easy Cookbook, a 1962 General Mills edition. Here is what the copy on my shelf is, using only what I can see and have written down.

It has two hardback covers joined by a metal spiral binder, so it lies flat on the counter while you cook. It measures about ten by eight by one inch. The recipes stick to dishes that taste good and do not take much work, which is the whole premise of the book. Condition is good vintage condition for its age, with no rips or tears.

Here is my honest read on who that copy is for. If you want a Betty Crocker you will actually use, this is the better buy of the two, and it is not close. It opens flat, which the bound hardcovers do not, and a 1962 general cookbook from the same kitchen test program is not a lesser book. The everyday recipes are the same kind of everyday recipes.

Who should skip it. If the memory you are chasing is specifically the 1950 book, this will not scratch it, and I would rather tell you that than sell you a near miss. Buy the one you remember or wait for it. I will not be offended.

You can see what Betty Crocker and other general cookbooks are on the shelf at any given moment in the Vintage Cookbook Collection. It changes week to week, because every one of these comes out of somebody's kitchen cupboard in Michigan one box at a time.

How to Check a Copy Before You Pay For It

1. Open to the copyright page first. It is in the first few pages and it settles almost every question. Year, printing, and any edition line are all right there. If the listing does not show that page, ask the seller to photograph it.
2. Look for the word facsimile. A reprint says so, usually in more than one place, because faithfulness is its selling point. If you see it and you wanted the original, keep shopping.
3. Ask whether the pages are all there. This is the single biggest risk on a book this heavily used. A missing recipe page is not wear. It is the wrong copy.
4. Check the binding by name, not by the word good. On a ring binder, ask whether the rings close cleanly and whether the holes are torn. On a bound copy, ask about the hinges and whether the boards are loose or sliding.
5. Ignore the binding when you are guessing the age. Ring binder does not mean 1950 and hardcover does not mean later. Go back to step one.
6. Name your recipe out loud. If one dish is the reason you are buying, tell the seller the name of it. On a book I have in hand, I will go look at the index. That one question prevents most returns.
7. Decide what wear you can live with before you look at prices. For a cooking copy, almost any sound book works, and stains near a popular recipe are evidence rather than damage. For a copy you intend to keep, you want tight boards and a complete book.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Is the 1950 Betty Crocker Picture Cook Book rare?

No. It sold in very large numbers and plenty of copies survive, because families kept them. Scarcity is not what drives the price on this title. Condition, completeness, and whether the binding is sound are what separate a twenty dollar copy from a hundred dollar one.

Q. How much should I expect to pay for one?

It depends almost entirely on condition. A rough but complete reading copy is inexpensive. A clean copy with tight boards, all its pages, and a dust jacket costs considerably more. Price the copy in front of you rather than the idea of a 1950 book, and ask what is wrong with it.

Q. Can I still cook from a 1950 cookbook?

Yes, for everyday cooking and baking. The recipes were tested to produce consistent results and they still do. The one real caution is food safety: check current guidance for canning times, meat and poultry temperatures, and recipes using raw eggs, because that advice has changed since the book was printed.

Q. Is a later Betty Crocker edition just as good?

For cooking, often yes. Later editions were tested the same way and carry the same kind of everyday recipes. For memory, no. If you are trying to match the book somebody in your family used, the edition and the year matter and a near miss will disappoint you.

Q. How do I tell a Betty Crocker from a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook?

By the cover. Betty Crocker used a solid red cover with the name in white script. Better Homes and Gardens used the red and white check pattern. Most people who remember plaid are remembering Better Homes and Gardens, so sort that out before you start searching.

So, Worth It?

Yes. With one condition attached.

This book is worth buying because it does something most cookbooks never did. It assumed you were standing in a kitchen with no idea what you were doing, and it showed you. That is a generous thing for a book to do, and it is why these copies are beaten up. They were used. They sat open on counters under dripping spoons for thirty years, which is the best review a cookbook can get.

So buy it for what it is. A working book that taught a few generations of people to cook, still perfectly able to do that job, available in enough copies that you do not have to settle for a bad one.

That last part is the whole thing. You do not have to settle. Ask about the pages, ask about the binding, ask whether your recipe is in there, and then buy the copy that answers all three. Availability is not the same as the right copy, and on this title you can afford to be picky.

Keep Learning

• Original 1950 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook or the Facsimile Reprint: Which Should I Buy? The comparison version of this question, for when you have two listings open and cannot tell them apart.
• Ring Binder or Hardcover Betty Crocker: Which One Holds Up in a Kitchen You Actually Cook In? What each binding survives, and why the format does not tell you the age.

About the Author

Pam is a bookseller in Midland, Michigan, where she runs Reading Vintage on her own. She has been out hunting sales for fifteen years, including five years as co-owner of an estate sale company, and she has carried over 500 reviews across Shopify and Etsy since 2016. She handles, describes, and photographs every cookbook herself, which is why she will open the book and check the index before she sells you the wrong copy.