The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library has an extensive collection of recipe books, most of them from the 17th and 18th centuries. These were not the sort of recipe books that we have now, published as complete works. These were compiled by their owners, made up of recipes that were handed down to them, collected from friends and family or developed by themselves. Even once recipes had begun to be printed and published to the masses, people still cut out their favourites and collected them together and shared them amongst themselves.