This high-quality re-issue of the first American cookbook is an exact facsimile of the landmark 1796 publication that brought about the birth of American cuisine. In its pages of ingredients and preparations it reveals a great deal about the variety of food enjoyed by Colonial Americans, their tastes and cooking techniques, and the numerous resourceful experiments American women were conducting with New World ingredients that hadn't been cataloged in the primarily British cookbooks of the day.

Author Amelia Simmons worked as a domestic in Colonial America and she gleaned much of the wisdom compiled in this book first-hand while working in the kitchen. Her book, like other early cookbooks, includes advice for selecting the best cuts of meat and fish and the most tender, flavorful veggies. Simmons' real innovation, however, is her inclusion of uniquely American ingredients that were omitted from imported British cookbooks at the time, as well as workarounds for traditional recipes that called for ingredients unavailable in Colonial America. Here are the first published recipes making use of ingredients like corn, cornmeal, spruce, pumpkins, cranberries, and Jerusalem artichokes. The words cookie and slaw also make their first appearances in this book

A cookbook of many firsts, Simmons' American Cookery will make a great addition to libraries of cookbook collectors, cultural historians, Americana buffs, and gourmets. Read on and take a trip through the culinary culture of a bygone era.

This facsimile of the first American-written cookbook published in the United States is not only a first in cookbook literature, but a historic document. It reveals the rich variety of food Colonial Americans enjoyed, their tastes, cooking and eating habits, even their colorful language.
Author Amelia Simmons worked as a domestic in Colonial America and gathered her cookery expertise from firsthand experience. Her book points out the best ways of judging the quality of meats, poultry, fish, vegetables, etc., and presents the best methods of preparing and cooking them. In choosing fish, poultry, and other meats, the author wisely advises, their smell denotes their goodness. Her sound suggestions for choosing the freshest and most tender onions, potatoes, parsnips, carrots, asparagus, lettuce, cabbage, beans, and other vegetables are as timely today as they were nearly 200 years ago.
Here are the first uniquely American recipes using corn meal -- Indian pudding, Johnny cake, and Indian slapjacks -- as well as the first recipes for pumpkin pudding, winter squash pudding, and for brewing spruce beer. The words cookie and slaw made their first published appearance in this book. You'll also find the first recommended use of pearlash (the forerunner of baking powder) to lighten dough, as well as recommendations for seasoning stuffing and roasting beef, mutton, veal, and lamb -- even how to dress a turtle.
Along with authentic recipes for colonial favorites, a Glossary includes definitions of antiquated cooking terms: pannikin, wallop, frumenty, emptins, and more. And Mary Tolford Wilson's informative Introductory Essay provides the culinary historical background needed to appreciate this important book fully.
Anyone who uses and collects cookbooks will want to have The First American Cookbook. Cultural historians, Americana buffs, and gourmets will find this rare edition filled with interesting recipes and rich in early American flavor.

2022 Reprint of the 1798 Edition. This edition reprints all the recipes in the original edition and is newly typeset for clarity. All of the original language is retained in its entirely. Only the recipes are included, with passing preliminary comments being excluded for the sake of economy. Named by the Library of Congress as one of the 88 Books That Shaped America, American Cookery was the first cookbook by an American author published in the United States. Until its publication, cookbooks printed and used by American colonists were British. The recipes in her book were adapted to the United States, a just recently constituted nation. The recipes reflect the fact that American cooks had learned to make do with what was available in North America. This cookbook reveals the rich variety of food colonial Americans used, their tastes, cooking and eating habits, and even their rich, down-to-earth language. Bringing together English cooking methods with truly American products, American Cookery contains the first known printed recipes substituting American maize for English oats; and the recipe for Johnny Cake is apparently the first printed version using cornmeal. The book also contains the first known recipe for turkey. Possibly the most far-reaching innovation was Simmons use of pearlash; a staple in colonial households as a leavening agent in dough, which eventually led to the development of modern baking powders. Thus, twenty years after the political upheaval of the American Revolution of 1776, a second revolution, a culinary one, occurred with the publication of a cookbook by an American for Americans.--Jan Longone, curator of American Culinary History, University of Michigan.

This high-quality re-issue of the first American cookbook is an exact facsimile of the landmark 1796 publication that brought about the birth of American cuisine. In its pages of ingredients and preparations it reveals a great deal about the variety of food enjoyed by Colonial Americans, their tastes and cooking techniques, and the numerous resourceful experiments American women were conducting with New World ingredients that hadn't been cataloged in the primarily British cookbooks of the day.

Author Amelia Simmons worked as a domestic in Colonial America and she gleaned much of the wisdom compiled in this book first-hand while working in the kitchen. Her book, like other early cookbooks, includes advice for selecting the best cuts of meat and fish and the most tender, flavorful veggies. Simmons' real innovation, however, is her inclusion of uniquely American ingredients that were omitted from imported British cookbooks at the time, as well as workarounds for traditional recipes that called for ingredients unavailable in Colonial America. Here are the first published recipes making use of ingredients like corn, cornmeal, spruce, pumpkins, cranberries, and Jerusalem artichokes. The words cookie and slaw also make their first appearances in this book

A cookbook of many firsts, Simmons' American Cookery will make a great addition to libraries of cookbook collectors, cultural historians, Americana buffs, and gourmets. Read on and take a trip through the culinary culture of a bygone era.

Little is known of Amelia Simmons, the author of the first American cookbook, except that she was probably a domestic worker and lacked any formal education. Some assumed that she was a New Englander based on the location of the first editions; however, later editions published around the Hudson River Valley, and the inclusion of several Dutch words in the book, reinforce the belief that Simmons was probably from the Hudson River Valley region. The book first appeared in 1796 to popular reception, as all other cookbooks being printed and used in the United States prior to this were British. Simmons presents the best methods of picking, preparing, and cooking a variety of ingredients, and her recipes do not shy away from generous use of herbs and wine. This is the first cookbook known to use pearlash, the precursor to modern baking powder, and it contains the first known printed recipe for turkey with cranberries. A classic of early American culinary literature, American Cookery gives a wonderful insight into the cuisine of early America. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.