Place of Origin

United States ➔ Kentucky

Date of Composition

ca. 1860s-1870s

Description

This recipe book is part of the library's collection of the Pettus - Speiden Family Papers, 1838-1971. It is written in at least two hands, both unknown. Some of the book's recipes are typical of the second third of the nineteenth century, including Sally Lunn (which calls for "brewer's yeast), Cocoanut Pudding, Transparent Pudding, and Sugar Cakes and Tea Cakes made without chemical leavening. Other recipes, such as Yeast Rolls, Pocket Rolls, Corn Fritters, and a second recipe for Tea Cakes, this one calling for soda, are more characteristic of final third of the nineteenth century. The book's Suet Pudding, page 12, is interestingly transitional between older and newer cooking methods. The writer encases the pudding batter in a pudding bag, but then, instead of boiling the pudding in a pot of water, in traditional fashion, she steams the pudding in a "steamer," a new device that came onto the market with the advent of the enclosed iron stove. The book includes a page index and a subject index, both incomplete.