Emerson, Lucy, 1770-1855

Nothing is known of Lucy Emerson. Much of her cookbook, including most of the lengthy title, is copied verbatim from the very popular work, American Cookery (1796) by Amelia Simmons, also in this collection. To her credit, Emerson writes in the Introduction that there are no "pretensions to the originality of the whole of the receipts herein contained," and the title page claims the book is merely "compiled" by her. She does include a few recipes not found in Simmons' book, including one for Oyster Soup.

Of course, Amelia Simmons was a plagiarist too, copying many of her recipes verbatim from Susannah Carter's work, The Frugal Housewife, an English cookbook also in this collection, which had its first American printing in 1772. Simmons' attempt to correct mistakes found in her first edition was largely unsuccessful, and Emerson lifted the original recipes, mistakes and all. As John and Karen Hess write in their book, The Taste of America, "If we may steal the old joke about the Hungarian recipe that begins, 'First you steal a chicken . . .', then the first direction for writing a cookbook is, first you steal a lot of recipes. This goes back a long way."

Sources

• Emerson, Lucy. The New-England Cookery. Montpelier, VT: Printed for Josiah Parks, 1808.
• Hess, John L. and Karen. The Taste of America. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1977.
• Lowenstein, Eleanor. Bibliography of American Cookery Books 1742-1860. Worcester, MA: American Antiquarian Society, 1972.
• Simmons, Amelia. American Cookery. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958. Facsimile of the 1796 edition, with an introduction by Mary Tolford Wilson.
• ----------American Cookery. Bedford, MA: Applewood Books, 1996. Facsimile of the second edition, Albany, New York: Charles R. and George Webster, 1796, with an Introduction by Karen Hess.

Written by Anne-Marie Rachman