Nam Pla (Thai sauce, 1977)

[George Thompson]

Barry says "The earliest cookbook under "Cookery, Thai" in the NYPL is EVERYDAY SIAMESE DISHES (1952), and the CATNYP records shows that it's--SURPRISE!--"missing." "

Barry and anyone else who has every used the NYPL has seen that the security checks there are nugatory, and, indeed, anyone who can't steal a book from the NYPL is too dumb to make use of the book, anyway.  AT one time the NYPL at least required that readers leave their coats and briefcases in a cloak room, but it has these last ten years or so dropped even that precaution.

I have more than once observed here that someone has stolen every book on some subject -- clocks, medieval pilgrimage, the Loeb Classical Library, all 1000 volumes.  I suppose that the many cookbooks Barry has complained of a "missing" from NYPL have been stolen by the same person, who may also have stolen the ones missing from Library of Congress, too.

People want their libraries to be open, welcoming, not intimidating, but that comes with a price.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African
Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.