The introductory texts reproduced here were written by the original Feeding America team to contextualize the books that were selected for inclusion as part of the 2001 digitization project.
Presbyterian Cook Book
Compiled By The Ladies Of The First Presbyterian Church, Dayton, Ohio.
Dayton, Ohio: Oliver Crook, c1873.
We have selected six charity cookbooks to represent the more than 3000 that were published in the United States between 1864 and 1922. As we indicated in our introduction, the charity cookbook is a legacy of the Civil War. They are a remarkable resource for the culinary historian.
For other charity cookbooks, please see
These books all represent themselves as charities, but also are cross-referenced to other categories. (In the case of Presbyterian Cook Book, the Midwest.)
This volume is one of the earliest recorded charity cookbooks in Ohio. It was very popular with about a dozen printings prior to the first World War. In 1973, it was selected by Chef Louis Szathmary for inclusion in the Cookery Americana series published to commemorate America's Bicentennial in 1976. The recipes are attributed to their authors.
The full complement of mid-American dishes can be found here. The Sauces and Catsups, Pickles and Relishes, and Canned Fruits and Vegetable sections are typical. There are recipes for Curry Powder, Tomato Mustard, Celery Soy and Chili Sauce. There are Catsups made from Cucumber, Walnut, Mushroom, Wild Plum, Gooseberry, Currant, and Grape. Among the Pickles and Relishes are recipes for India Pickles, Cucumber Mangoes, Piccalilli, Oil Pickle Cabbage, Chow Chow, Spiced Nutmegs and Sweet Pickle Cherries.
There are instructions for canning or preserving peaches and pears, strawberries, quinces, blackberries, crab-apples, oranges, green gage plums, citron melon and more.
In the Pudding section we find all the usual recipes plus a few special and different ones: Piccolomini, Boiled Bread, Cleveland Biscuit, Dorrit, Valise, Wapsie, Seven-Cent, and Young America.
In addition to the general cookery recipes, there is a chapter on Drinks for Family Use, Food for the Sick (very common in earlier cookbooks), and Miscellaneous medical advice and household hints, from How To Clean Light Kid Gloves to How to Remove Fruit-Stains from Table Linen.
