The Compleat Housewife

First published in England, this kitchen reference became available to colonial American housewives when it was printed in Williamsburg, Virginia is 1742. Originally published in London in 1727, The Compleat Housewife was the first cookbook printed in the United States. William Parks, a Virginia printer, printed and sold the cookbook believing there would be a strong market for it among Virginia housewives who wanted to keep up with the latest London fashions—the book was a best-seller there. Parks did make some attempt to Americanize it, deleting certain recipes “the ingredients or material for which are not to be had in this country,” but for the most part, the book was not adjusted to American kitchens. Even so, it became the first cookery best seller in the New World, and Parks’s major book publication. Author Eliza Smith described her book on the title page as “Being a collection of several hundred approved receipts, in cookery, pastry, confectionery, preserving, pickles, cakes, creams, jellies, made wines, cordials. And also bills of fare for every month of the year. To which is added, a collection of nearly two hundred family receipts of medicines; viz. drinks, syrups, salves, ointments, and many other things of sovereign and approved efficacy in most distempers, pains, aches, wounds, sores, etc. never before made publick in these parts; fit either for private families, or such public-spirited gentlewomen as would be beneficent to their poor neighbours.” The recipes are easy to understand and cover everything from 50 recipes for pickling everything from nasturtium buds to pigeons to “lifting a swan, breaking a deer, and splating a pike,” indicating the importance of understanding how to prepare English game. The book also includes diagrams for positioning serving dishes to create an attractive table display.

In 1615 Englishman Gervase Markham published a handbook for housewives that contains "all the virtuous knowledges and actions both of the mind and body, which ought to be in any complete housewife". Markham instructs and advises on everything from the plague to baldness and bad breath. Woodcut illustrations add a richness to this look at life during the Renaissance.

Published in 1830 in North America, this volume in the American Antiquarian Cookbook Collection stresses American cooking over European cuisine. Within a year of its publication in the United States, The Cook Not Mad was also published in Canada and thus became Canada’s first printed cookbook. In contrast to some of the larger encyclopedic cookbook collections of the day, The Cook Not Mad provides 310 recipes and household information designed to be a quick and easy reference guide to domestic organization for the contemporary housewife. The author describes the content as “Good Republican dishes” and includes typical American ingredients such as turkey, pumpkin, codfish, and cranberries. There are classic recipes for Tasty Indian Pudding, Federal Pancakes, Good Rye and Indian Bread (cornmeal), Johnnycake, Indian Slapjack, Washington Cake, and Jackson Jumbles. In spite of the author’s American “intentions,” the book does include foreign influences such as traditional English recipes, and it also contains one of the earliest known recipes for shish-kebab in American cookbooks. Reproduced by permission from the volume in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts, founded in 1812.