history of foods & recipes.

[Woods Dweller]

Good Historical cook books with the history of foods & recipes.

Patricia B. Mitchell's Inkling Series
Booklist by Categories
http://www.foodhistory.com/inklings/books/categories.htm

 

[tenngun]

Jas Townsend also has some cooking and reciepes on you tube. Reah Tennahill wrote food in history, the last quarter delt with 16-20 cen.
I would like to find a work with18-19cent sweadish and german foods. Most of our 18th cent books are english and penn dutch books tend to be late 19th cent

 

I started a website for such things just need to get back to completing it. Have dealt in correct period foods with several businesses, Buckhorn Rendezvous 1980-1990 closing, Clark & Sons Mercantile 1990-2005 sold and then helped Bob Browder with his line until his closing at Longhunter Leather Co 2012. See: http://clarkandsons.tripod.com/

 

[zimmerstutzen]

I have a re-print of the Virginia Housewife written in the 1820's. I have another re-print of an early cook book, IIRC from 1805, but I can't remember the name.

Gunston Hall, on Mason Neck in northern virginia, has George Mason's wife's hand written cook book from the 1770's on display in the kitchen of Gunston Hall. I tried to get permission to copy down some of the recipes, but they said no, they intended to publish it. Don't know if they ever did.

In the Virginia Housewife, there was a recipe for wafers. I ran across a set of wafer irons, so I made the wafers a few times at rendezvous. I compared the recipes and it is nearly identical to the recipe for Italian Pizzelles and for modern Fortune Cookies. While the recipes make different size batches, the proportions from one to the other are practically the same. But the archaic measurements are crazy. Like a tea cup of this, lard the size of a hen's egg, a dram of flour, a thimble of that, Jamaican sugar well pounded.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Project Gutenberg has lots of stuff including a book "shelf" on cookery, and you will find books from the 17th century to the 20th century in HTML format, kindle, and ebooks.

The Hathi Trust is another such resource, though I found it easier to find a book by title or author's name there than by subject matter.

They are not limited to cooking as one may also find books on other topics by authors such as Doddridge, Kephart, Sears, Forsyth and etc.

LD

 

[Coot]

Perhaps the ultimate guide for 18th c NA is "The Art of Cookery" by Hanna Glasse - first published in 1747 with over 20 editions by 1800 and in print till 1843 and reprinted today. A modern book "The Magic of Fire" by William Rubel is an excellent international guide to hearth cooking both ancient & modern.

Other books include "The Williamsburg Art of Cookery" published by CW, "The Backcountry Housewife" by Kay Moss & Kathryn Hoffman and "Revolutionary War Period Cookery" by Robert Pelton. There is a lot of info on period cooking out there.

 

[Woods Dweller]

What I like about these books are: they give the recipes from the time period by woman who wrote them down [Like Hanna Glasse & othere]

They put into the book how a table would have been set, the foods prepared, and served. From diary's of people who ate at someone home, [at Christmas.]
And each book is $4.95

example:
Colonial Christmas Cooking by Patricia B. Mitchell will assist those wishing to plan a Yule theme dinner, as well as anyone interested in learning about historic foodways. Descriptions of different styles of celebrating the birth of Christ are presented ”” from the Moravians' devout joyousness to the Anglican's bubbly merriment. (And then there was the Puritan non-participation in the celebration”¦.) Recipes for “Wassail,” “Joy Tea Cakes,” “Jamestown Sweet Potato Pudding,” etc., will definitely put one in the holiday mood.

Numerous colonial-era anecdotes and bits of colonial legend and lore add to the appeal of Colonial Christmas Cooking.

 

30 years ago the wife and myself were finishing up a few credits needed for engineering degrees - spending many hours researching at local libraries. For some unknown reason I was always ahead of the wife on gathering material (she's more detailed).

I had time and got to thinking about in the early years of re-enactments how guys were not getting the total experience. When you looked at the whole picture many had spent a lot of money on their clothing, weapons and equipment but when going into a camp after the tourists had left in the evening was the problem. Non-correct edibles, wrong period cookware, etc.

To make a long story short I started looking at period correct foods available in North America while the wife was working on her college degree research. That's how several of the business' mentioned got their start, no one offered anything close to correct in edibles - foraged or cultivated.

One of the best reference books availabe is "Jefferson's Garden Book". Thomas Jefferson brought more edibles to North America than even Ben Franklin, trading what was available here for seedlings or plants from Europe and anywhere else he could think of needing. This is a good reference book that anyone wanting to get correct edibles should have in their library.

I'm out of business on edibles now but still have lots of notes and information of 40 years of researching that I could post here to help everyone that's interested.

Only if you folks are interested would I take the time to move forward on such a venture, plus give you some cross references for those wanting to grow their own.

 

[Robert Wolfe]

Buck, I'd certainly be interested.

 

[Scott_C]

Buck - always find your info useful and very much appreciated.