Charity and Community in American Cookbooks, from the Beginning to the First Community Cookbooks (1742-1870)

The American Community Cookbook–a collection of recipes created by local cooks and often used for fundraising– doesn’t appear in its full form until 1870, but a context of community and a charitable impulse set the early American cookbook apart from its English and Continental predecessors. A progression of cookbooks from 1742 to 1870 illustrates a sense of that community and an effort to use cookbooks for social purposes beyond the creation of meals. Don Lindgren will show and describe how American food cultures were expressed in early American cookbooks and consider the implications for American cookbooks in general.

Several recipes from America’s earliest community cookbooks will be sampled, such as corn pudding, mushroom ketchup, and chicken croquettes.

Don Lindgren is an antiquarian bookseller focused on printed and manuscript books about food and drink. He has served as a Governor of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America and is a member of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), and he has presented at the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery. He is currently working on a multivolume exploration of the American community cookbook, titled UNXLD: American Cookbooks of Community & Place.