Table Of ContentF
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Revised and updated, the beloved cookbook that reveals M
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the secrets of early American foodways
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Praise for previous editions: L
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“Excellent by any century’s standards.” K
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—Publishers Weekly N
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“Authentic 1829 recipes. . . . Modern methods are compared with common
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hearth methods in an excellent cookbook that specializes in quick yet d
authentic American fare.”—Midwest Book Review
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t Old Sturbridge
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As the largest outdoor living history complex in the Learn how to preserve apples for year-round
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Northeast, Old Sturbridge Village has celebrated the use, how salt-preserved meats were freshened, how b
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feel and the flavors of America’s past for more than Election Cake got its name, how to select the best Village Cookbook
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sixty years. Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook has fish for dinner—and how to make a range of delicious
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long been cherished for giving modern-day readers recipes, from roasts and fricassees to pies and e
Authentic Early American Recipes for the Modern Kitchen
a close look at how New England families cooked puddings. Whether you are a history buff, cookbook V
in the early 1800s. Included are authentic recipes collector, or food lover, you will be delighted by the i
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from early America’s most popular cookbook—Lydia recreations of early American cuisine found in Old l
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Maria Child’s The American Frugal Housewife, first Sturbridge Village Cookbook. g
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published in Boston in 1829—in a form that can be
Debra Friedman is Head of Interpretation at Old
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reproduced in today’s kitchen. This incomparable
Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. o
resource has now been revised and updated with new
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information on early American foodways and tested, Jack Larkin is Chief Historian and Museum Scholar k
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successful recipes for fireplace cooking, as well as at Old Sturbridge Village, as well as Affiliate
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modern-method alternatives. Professor of History at Clark University. o
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Cover design by Diana Nuhn
Cover photos of bread and apple pie ©Photos.com, wood background
©Shutterstock, bottom right © OldSturbridgeVillage
$18.95 US / $20.95 CAN
Printed in the United States of America 3rd
ISBN: 978-0-7627-4929-4
Edition
E Guilford, Connecticut
A www.GlobePequot.com Edited by DEBRA FRIEDMAN
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ThreeForks® is an imprint
and JACK LARKIN | 3rd Edition
of The Globe Pequot Press
®
®
Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook
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Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook
Authentic Early American Recipes
for the Modern Kitchen
Third Edition
Edited by Debra Friedman and Jack Larkin
®®
OSVCB_i-vi,1-218.indd 3 1/26/09 3:25:09 PM
®
Copyright © 1984, 1995, 2009 by Old Sturbridge Village
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as may
be expressly permitted in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission
should be addressed to The Globe Pequot Press, Attn: Rights and Permissions
Department, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437.
A ThreeForks Book
ThreeForks is a registered trademark of The Globe Pequot Press.
Design by Sheryl P. Kober
Illustrations by Cynthia Dias-Reid
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Old Sturbridge Village cookbook : authentic early American recipes for the mod-
ern kitchen / edited by Debra Friedman and Jack Larkin. — 3rd ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-7627-4929-4
1. Cookery, American—New England style—History—19th century. I. Friedman,
Debra. II. Larkin, Jack, 1943- III. Old Sturbridge Village.
TX715.2.N48O428 2009
641.5974—dc22
2008042533
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents
Acknowledgments vi
Introduction 1
Hearth Cookery 18
Common Cooking 27
Vegetables 73
Soups 91
Herbs 102
Puddings 111
Common Pies 134
Common Cakes 153
Breads, Yeast, &c. 179
Preserves, &c. 192
Sources of the Recipes 212
Metric Conversion Tables 214
Index 215
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Acknowledgments
For over sixty years staff members at Old Sturbridge Vil- served as the Village’s editors. Debra Friedman, with the
lage have been studying the foodways and cooking tech- assistance of Ryan Beckman, has tested additional recipes
niques of early New England and demonstrating them to on the hearth. The previous editions were edited by Caro-
generations of museum visitors. This third edition of the line Sloat, with the assistance of Linda Oakley and Anna
Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook builds on the previous T. Adams. Cynthia Dias-Reid created the illustrations.
versions and represents the work of many Village staff Others have contributed in many ways, including
members, past and present. Debra Friedman, Director of those who sampled recipes as they were tested. Old Stur-
Interpretation, and Jack Larkin, Chief Historian, have bridge Village extends its appreciation to all of them.
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ntroductIon
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Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook
The Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook gives today’s children busy. She provided instructions on how to take
readers a close look at how New England families care of furniture and carpets, and tips on health care and
cooked in the early 1800s. It also provides authen- grooming. But her primary aim was to improve the stan-
tic recipes from early America’s most popular cookbook dard of cooking. More than anything, Mrs. Child wanted
in a form that can be reproduced in the modern kitchen. to instruct her readers how to preserve food and prepare
meals—efficiently, inexpensively, and well.
The American Frugal Housewife spoke so eloquently
The American Frugal Housewife
to the nation’s households that it remains an important
“The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of source for learning about hearth and home in the early
gathering up all the fragments, so that nothing be lost.” years of the American republic. Mrs. Child’s book is
This is how Lydia Maria Child introduced The American still actively in use at Old Sturbridge Village, the out-
Frugal Housewife, a book of recipes and forthright advice door museum of early-nineteenth-century New England,
on household management first published in Boston in where it guides the Village’s demonstration and interpre-
1829. She wrote her book to fill a need that she found in tation of cooking and domestic life.
her own experience as cook and housekeeper. Despite “the Each year, hundreds of thousands of visitors come to
great variety of cookery books already in the market,” she the Village, in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, to watch cos-
wrote, she “did not know of one suited to the wants of the tumed staff members cook Mrs. Child’s recipes in restored
middling class in our own country.” Her perception must early-nineteenth-century kitchens. Many of them get
have been accurate, for many thousands of households involved in hands-on cooking activities during their
bought copies of the Frugal Housewife, keeping it in print visit or in special programs. They frequently ask, “Where
for the next twenty years. Some young women, who left can I find these recipes?” and “How can I cook them at
their farm homes to work in New England’s new textile home?”
factories, actually sent the book home to their mothers Many of the recipes provided in the Old Sturbridge
with their first earnings! An entire generation of New Village Cookbook are based on the experiences of the
England women relied on Mrs. Child’s commonsensensi- Village staff in finding out just how the recipes in Mrs.
cal advice and cooked with her recipes. Child’s book should be prepared, and how the results
One of Mrs. Child’s goals was to help women manage should taste.
their households efficiently, whether in the countryside or Mrs. Child wrote about the kind of cooking she knew
the city. She gave helpful advice on the economical use best—hearth cooking. There was just about no alterna-
of time and materials, and on keeping rooms clean and tive in her time. Cookstoves were still uncommon and
2
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Old Sturbridge Village
A trip to Old Sturbridge Village, the largest outdoor history museum in the Northeast, is a journey
through time to a rural New England town of the 1830s. Visitors are invited into more than forty
original buildings, each carefully researched, restored, and brought to the museum site from towns
throughout New England. These include homes, meetinghouses, a district school, country store,
bank, law office, printing office, carding mill, gristmill, pottery, blacksmith shop, shoe shop, cooper
shop, and an accurately reproduced sawmill.
Authentically costumed staff, called history interpreters, carry out the daily activities of an
early-nineteenth-century community. Here you may wander country roads and visit with a farmer
plowing fields, listen to the blacksmith’s rhythmic hammering, or smell the aroma of bread baking
in a fireplace oven. With four unique seasons and more than 200 acres to explore, there is always
something new to see at Old Sturbridge Village.
The period of American history portrayed by Old Sturbridge Village, 1790–1840, is of major
significance because it was a time in which the everyday lives of New Englanders were transformed
by the rise of commerce and manufacturing, improvements in agriculture and transportation, the
pulls of emigration and urbanization, and the tides of educational, political, cultural, and social
change.
The Village’s portrayal of the past is grounded in award-winning historical research that includes
archaeology, scientific analysis of nineteenth-century objects and buildings, and painstaking study
of letters, diaries, account books, and other documents.
Old Sturbridge Village is located in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, on U.S. Route 20 near the
junction of the Massachusetts Turnpike (Interstate 90, exit 9) and Interstate 84, exit 2. You can learn
more about the Village’s exhibits and programs, and about planning your visit, at www.osv.org, or by
calling (508) 347–3362.
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