![]() ![]() She also recognizes the impact that diet has on health and recovery from illness, which would be a popular theme in cookbooks for the next century. Her emphasis on frugality extended beyond the kitchen, offering numerous tips on budgeting at home. The Mark Bittman of her day, Lydia Marie Child’s The Frugal Housewife was a slim volume that made it popular amongst pioneers and light travelers. Lydia Marie Child’s The Frugal Housewife (1829) Her recipes include Italian, Spanish, French and Caribbean dishes that reflect the cosmopolitan palates of a growing nation.Īmerican Table Recipes: Scolloped Tomatoes She doesn’t stick exclusively to the south, however. Considered the first regional American cookbook, it offers the first printed recipes for barbecued pork, okra soup, and a host of other traditional southern recipes. To this day, Randolph’s cookbook is referenced by chefs and cookbook writers as an inspiration for authentic southern cuisine. Mary Randolph’s The Virginia Housewife (1824) Print Editions: AbeBooks: New / Collectible Simmons turned her attention to uniquely American ingredients, and her cookbook was the first to include recipes that used cornmeal, and was the first to suggest pearlash as a leavening agent in baking. Other cookbooks had been printed in the colonies and the new republic, but they were largely reprints of English cookbooks like that of Hannah Glasse. Print Editions: AbeBooks: New / Collectibleīelieved to be the first cookbook printed in America, by an American for an American audience, this is one of the most significant early cookbooks ever written. Online Editions: PDF, 1747 Edition Ebook/PDF, 1774 Edition Published in 1805, it included recipes for such things as Cranberry Tarts, Indian Pudding, and Maple Sugar. Any of the early printings will be of interest to the food historian, but American food historians will particularly be interested in the first edition specifically targeting American readers. The recipes are plentiful and can be made economically, and dispute the belief that early American cuisine was bland or uninteresting. ![]() The popularity of the book came, in large part, from the way Glasse wrote the recipes so that an untrained cook would likely understand. ![]() We can see its influence on Martha Washington’s cookbook, and we know she had a copy of Glasse’s Art of Cookery at Mount Vernon. It could be found in homes from all thirteen colonies including many of the Founding Fathers, and sales of the book continued well after the Revolution. But Hannah Glasse’s Art of Cookery was the bestselling English-language cookbook for over a century, and its import and influence on early American cooking can’t be overstated. Technically, this is not an American cookbook. Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747) But anyone interested in American foodways will undoubtedly learn a great deal and eat well from these selections. It is subjective, and to limit it somewhat, I’m only including books published before 1950. As all lists of its kind, it is imperfect and incomplete, but attempts to capture highlights from American history. With the new year being the time for lists, here’s my list of the top twelve most influential historic American cookbooks that help to document the way we ate. Occasionally I hear from people looking to start a historic cookbook library and want recommendations. Table Service, from Charles Ranhofer’s The Epicurean (1894) ![]()
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