One of the most vivid descriptions of the joys of foraging for wild food was written by Edna Lewis in “In Pursuit of Flavor,” the 1988 follow-up to her influential book “The Taste of Country Cooking.” She wrote in the present tense about the tastes from her childhood in Freetown, Virginia, where both cultivated and…
After making the fudge recipe, I thought I’d delve a little more into the background on the “Favorite Receipt Book and Business Directory,” published in 1884 by the Ladies Aid Society of the Church of the Holy Comforter. Unlike other charity cookbooks, this one doesn’t even name any of the women who might be involved…
“Dozens of AFRO readers… have kept the AFRO switchboard busy since last week’s edition published a recipe for cornbread made by Mrs. Ronald [Fanniejoe] Reid of 1306 W. Lanvale St.” – Afro-American, February 4, 1956 After The Afro-American printed Harlem Park resident Fanniejoe Reid’s cornbread recipe in January 1956, the recipe kind of went ‘viral.’…
If there were definitive proof that fudge was invented in Baltimore, we’d never hear the end of it.
Abby Fisher’s 1881 book of recipes opens with an apology. Unable to read or write, the former slave and accomplished Southern cook apparently felt uneasy about producing the cookbook that was so often requested of her. Never mind that her contemporaries – such as Mrs. B. C. Howard and Mrs. Charles H. Gibson – didn’t…