There is no information available about Laura Trowbridge, but her goal in compiling Excelsior Cook Book is clear. Using her twenty-five years experience and selections from the “best and most approved authors,” she wished to encourage contemporary homemakers to achieve excellence in the “skillful discharge of domestic duties.” As cited on the title page of her encyclopedic reference, the book includes: cooking of all kinds of meats, fowl, fish; recipes for gravies, soups, sauces, bread, cakes, pastry, puddings, custards, preserves, and essences; canning fruit; methods for making butter, cheese, and soaps; antidotes for poison, cookery for the sick; a family physician’s manual; advice on gardening, care of house plants; and many “receipts” for items necessary to the “personal toilet.” As was the custom of the day, a number of the various sections of the book are word-for-word reprints from other books and compiled by many different authors. This edition of Excelsior Cook Book by Laura Trowbridge was reproduced by permission from the volume in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1812 by Isaiah Thomas, a Revolutionary War patriot and successful printer and publisher, the Society is a research library documenting the life of Americans from the colonial era through 1876. The Society collects, preserves, and makes available as complete a record as possible of the printed materials from the early American experience. The cookbook collection includes approximately 1,100 volumes.

This volume in the American Antiquarian Cookbook Collection, published in New York in 1830, is a new version of a famous recipe collection previously published in London by William Kitchiner, adapted specifically for use by the American public. Dr. William Kitchiner’s The Cook’s Oracle was an enormous best-seller upon publication in London in 1824, and the author developed an international reputation based on his eccentricities and the extravagance of his writing. Unlike most food writers of the day, he cooked the food himself, washed up afterward, and performed all the household tasks he wrote about. He traveled around with a “portable cabinet of taste,” a folding box containing all of his unique mustards and sauces, and he was well known for his invention of the popular Wow-Wow sauce. No wonder that an anonymous American “medical gentleman” (as asserted on the title page of this edition) chose to adapt Kitchiner’s English cookbook for American kitchens. In addition to over 600 recipes that run the full gamut of nineteenth century cookery, the book includes information about etiquette, dinner invitations, weights and measures (one of the first attempts to standardize cookbook measurements), carving, marketing advice, and techniques of boiling, baking, roasting, frying, and broiling. This edition of The Cook’s Oracle was reproduced by permission from the volume in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1812 by Isaiah Thomas, a Revolutionary War patriot and successful printer and publisher, the society is a research library documenting the lives of Americans from the colonial era through 1876. The society collects, preserves, and makes available as complete a record as possible of the printed materials from the early American experience. The cookbook collection comprises approximately 1,100 volumes.

Published in 1873 in New York, The New Housekeeper’s Manual was written by Catharine Esther Beecher and her sister Harriet Beecher Stowe, two of the most influential women writers and activists of their time. Both women exerted profound influence on American letters and on the shape of American domestic life and educational reform. The book combines two works by the sisters in one volume. The American Woman’s Home: Or Principles of Domestic Science describes kitchen and home design, coping with kitchen appliances and newly invented gadgets, cooking healthful food and drink, caring for the sick with medical recipes, and gardening with plants and domestic animals. The Handy Cook-Book is a “complete, condensed guide to wholesome, economical, and delicious cooking with nearly 500 choice and tested recipes.” The authors assert that their extensive manual was designed specifically for middle-class housewives, versus others written for women with money and servants. It includes housekeeping information and dishes for every occasion that the practical-minded housewife might need. The New Housekeeper’s Manual was well received and had over 25 printings in 25 years. This edition of The New Housekeeper’s Manual was reproduced by permission from the volume in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1812 by Isaiah Thomas, a Revolutionary War patriot and successful printer and publisher, the Society is a research library documenting the life of Americans from the colonial era through 1876. The Society collects, preserves, and makes available as complete a record as possible of the printed materials from the early American experience. The cookbook collection includes approximately 1,100 volumes

An important and fascinating document of American social history, The Housekeeper’s Manual, or Complete Housewife is believed to be an adapted version of the British best seller The Cook’s Oracle; and Housekeeper’s Manual by Dr. William Kitchiner. Intended as “a Guide for Families,” the cookbook provides recipes for “the most simple and most highly finished” dishes, all tested personally by the author, which was uncommon in the early 19th century. Furthermore, each household tip or skill was also performed by Dr. Kitchiner to test each method before writing the entry. The contents include helpful and quaint information such as “large pears should be tied up by the stalk” or “to preserve blankets from moths [it is best] to fold them and lay them under the feather beds that are in use” as well as recipes for stewing oysters, dressing halibut, preparing beef broth, and boiling ground rice milk. Combined with the charming household information and the treasured recipes, The Housekeeper’s Manual, or Complete Housewife also calls for wives to be involved in the financial concerns of the household and serve as active members of the family, making this tome a particularly significant historical collection. This edition of The Housekeeper’s Manual, or Complete Housewife was reproduced by permission from the volume in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1812 by Isaiah Thomas, a Revolutionary War patriot and successful printer and publisher, the Society is a research library documenting the life of Americans from the colonial era through 1876. The Society collects, preserves, and makes available as complete a record as possible of the printed materials from the early American experience. The cookbook collection includes approximately 1,100 volumes.

Printed in at least twenty editions by 1851, The Young Housekeeper was a successful work by prolific author and president of the American Vegetarian Society, William A. Alcott. Of the 108 books authored by Alcott, The Young Housekeeper focuses on the role of mothers and housekeepers in the healthy preparation of food for the family. Alcott stressed that the types of food consumed as well as the method of preparation all combined to be “best for their whole being, here and hereafter.” While Alcott’s beliefs and aspirations are informative about mid-19th century reform, The Young Housekeeper also provides recipes for simple vegetarian meals from chapters such as The Apple, The Pear, and The Cucumber. This edition of The Young Housekeeper was reproduced by permission from the volume in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1812 by Isaiah Thomas, a Revolutionary War patriot and successful printer and publisher, the Society is a research library documenting the life of Americans from the colonial era through 1876. The Society collects, preserves, and makes available as complete a record as possible of the printed materials from the early American experience. The cookbook collection includes approximately 1,100 volumes.