THE COOKERY BOOK COLLECTION OF RUTH WATSON
Lot 4•
AMERICAN COOKERY
The Cook Not Mad, or Rational Cookery, FIRST EDITION, Watertown, Knowlton & Rice, 1830
19 August 2020, 13:00 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £535.50 inc. premium
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AMERICAN COOKERY
The Cook Not Mad, or Rational Cookery; Being a Collection of Original and Selected Receipts, Embracing not only the Art of Curing Various Kinds of Meats and Vegetables for Future Use, but of Cooking, in its General Acceptation, to the Taste, Habits, and Degrees of Luxury, Prevalent with the American Publick, in Town and Country... together with Sundry Miscellaneous Kinds of Information, of Importance to Housekeepers in General, FIRST EDITION, copyright notice and errata leaf pasted to verso of title as often, slightly browned throughout, occasional light staining, portion torn from lower quarter of p.41/2, publisher's linen-backed printed blue-grey paper covered wooden boards, upper cover very faded and with 3 holes showing wooden boards beneath, lower cover with figure more visible, joints cracked, preserved in later calf-backed solander box, spine gilt, 12mo (137 x 69mm.), Watertown, Knowlton & Rice, 1830
Footnotes
FIRST EDITION IN THE ORIGINAL BINDING OF THIS NOTED EARLY AMERICAN COOKBOOK, no copies of which have appeared at auction since 1977. The anonymous author advocates the use of American ingredients such as cranberries, corn, turkeys, and watermelon, promising not to introduce "English, French and Italian methods of rendering things indigestible... These evils are attempted to be avoided. Good republican dishes and garnishing, proper to fill an every day bill of fare, from the condition of the poorest to the richest individual, have been principally aimed at".
Provenance: Lucia A. Field, ownership signature on front paste-down, and John Field, faint pencil inscription.