The introductory texts reproduced here were written by the original Feeding America team to contextualize the books that were selected for inclusion as part of the 2001 digitization project.
Mrs. Rorer's New Cook Book; A Manual of Housekeeping, By Sarah Tyson Rorer.
Philadelphia, Arnold And Company [c1902]
Mrs. Rorer is one of the great ladies of American culinary history. She was a nationally recognized cookery expert, founded and ran a cooking school in Philadelphia for 18 years, authored over 75 books and pamphlets, edited her own magazine Table Talk, and the short-lived Household News and was domestic editor of the Ladies Home Journal for 14 years.
Many of her publications were advertising pamphlets and small, attractive books on special subjects such as eggs, oysters, ice cream, breads, leftovers, candy, chafing dishes and salads. Many of her writings had multiple printings and were considered indispensable in tens of thousands of homes, especially in the Northeast.
Among her other major books were Mrs. Rorer's Vegetable Cookery and Meat Substitutes, one of the most detailed and savory of vegetarian cookbooks and her Mrs. Rorer's Every Day Menu Book. This latter is one of the few such books of the period to offer a complete suggested menu for each of the 365 days of the year, 3 meals a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. It also includes an extensive list of menus for special occasions, with accompanying illustrations, including a Golf Luncheon, a Japanese Tea, a Chafing Dish Supper, a Gentleman's Game Dinner, A Few Simple Twelve O'Clock Breakfasts, and Lenten Dinners. Her Diet for the Sick is an exhaustive (557pp.) investigation into the best foods to be cooked for patients suffering from 100 specific diseases from anemia to ulcers and yellow fever. She, along with a number of the leading 19th century culinary authorities, was obviously interested in diet, nutrition and health.
We have chosen to represent the impressive culinary output by Mrs. Rorer with this volume, her magnum opus. It includes 731 pages of recipes (over 1500), hints and advice and more than 125 illustrations. There are instructions for various utensils amd equipment, and special chapters on Jewish, Spanish, Creole and Hawaiian dishes. Recipes from acorns to zwieback. This is one of America's great cookbooks. The Ladies Home Journal reprinted it in 1970.
The recipes can be used today. The Cream of Salsify Soup (p.77) sounds delicious, especially if one follows her suggestion to add a bit of salt codfish. The Vegetables chapter formidably displays Mrs. Rorer's interest and knowledge of the subject. In its 160 pages, it contains, for example, in addition to the usual produce, nine recipes for Lentils (including Egyptian Style, Pie and Souffle, and two dozen for various kinds of cabbages, kale, caulifower and brussels sprouts, several each for parsnip, carob bean, artichokes, Jerusalem artichokes, celeriac, egg plant, horse radish, and okra. The attention paid to mushrooms is extraordinary for the time period. There are detailed descriptions of various mushroom varieties followed by recipes for using them, including Baked Lepiota Procera, Pickled Clavaria, Puff Balls a la Poulette, and Mushroom Catsup.
Every section is equally informative. The range of desserts and confections is enormous. In addition, there are twenty pages devoted to Nuts, including recipes for Peanut Wafers, Cocoanut Jambolaya, Chestnut Griddle Bread, Nut and Fruit Crackers, and Nut Sausage.
This volume offers a picture of the then-current knowledge of diet, nutrition, culnary history, etc. It is an excellent view of cooking at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries.
