Browse the Collection by Category: Regional Cookery

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There are 14 books in this category

Regional cookbooks appeared early in America's history. The first book in our collection, Amelia Simmons' American Cookery, represented all of what was then America, although there is a Northeastern tinge to it. Once Mary Randolph published her Virginia Housewife, other regional cookbooks quickly followed.

Many New England items are included in our selection, such as Howland's New England Economical Housekeeper, Lincoln's Boston Cook Book and Farmer's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. The South is well represented by Randolph's Virginia Housewife, Tyree's Housekeeping in Old Virginia, Fisher's What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, Hearn's La Cuisine Creole, Eustis' Cooking in Old Creole Days, Fox's Blue Grass Cook Book, and McCulloch-Williams' Dishes and Beverages of the Old South. The Midwest is covered, for example, by the Presbyterian Cook Book from Dayton, Ohio, Buckeye Cookery, and Kander's Settlement Cook Book. The West can be discovered in the Los Angeles Times Cook Book and the Hotel St. Francis Cook Book, among others. The West, as we know it today will not be covered by Mrs. Collins' The Great Western Cook Book, as the West of her day (1857) was to be found in New Albany, Indiana.

Regional dishes can, of course, be found in many of the general cookbooks, such as Miss Corson's Practical American Cookery. Please note that the MSU collections hold many other regional cookbooks published in this period.

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Updated: 05/21/04