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.
The Housekeeper's Assistant, Composed Upon Temperance Principles, With Instructions In The Art Of Making Plain And Fancy Cakes, Puddings, Pastry, Confectionery, Ice Creams, Jellies, Blanc Mange, Also For The Cooking Of All The Various Kinds Of Meats And Vegetables; With A Variety Of Useful Information And Receipts Never Before Published. By An Old Housekeeper.
Boston: James Munroe And Company, 1845.
This volume represents the many 19th century American cookbooks which were based on temperance principles. In some cases, these books eschewed any and all alcohol use, while others attempted to temper the use of alcohol.
This book, for example, has several recipes using alcohol such as the one To Make Vinegar (p.83) which uses two gallons of whiskey and "a cask or barrel, that has had wine, or some kind of spirit in it, (a cider barrel will do)." It also has recipes for Mulled Wine and for an Arrowroot Jelly to which, if it is to be used for diarrhoea, should have a spoonful of brandy added to it.
The author tells us that she was "in her youth deprived by death of the fostering hand of a kind mother." Thus she wrote this book to be "the Orphan's Friend" for use by those who, like herself, were orphaned or those whose mothers were simply too busy to teach their daughters "the rudiments of housekeeping." The author, after having been a practical housekeeper for more than thirty years, wanted to share what she had learned on the subject.
She does this very well. We find many practical hints: "Eggs can be purchased cheap in the spring; pack them away in salt on the pointed end, and place in a cool cellar, and they will remain good through the summer." And, "Hard water spoils the color of vegetables; a pinch of saleratus or salts of wormwood will restore."
But we also find many interesting recipes, especially the elegant ones for cakes, including the Saffron Cakes which call for caraway seeds, fine cloves, cinnamon, mace, rose-water and saffron among its flavorings.
There is also great attention paid to specific, selected foods: Maple Molasses; Curry, Malay's Curry and Curry Powder; both Seville and China oranges are called for in an Orange Jelly recipe; and a diversity of sugar types includes sifted, refined, fine pounded, Lisbon, double-refined, loaf, powdered, finely powdered, coarse brown, clean brown, common, white powdered, ground or finely powdered white, refined and sifted, and finely ground, powdered. Cochineal powder is recommended for dying food red.
Many of the recipes in this book are for large quantity cooking. Her Hunter's Beef calls for 25 lbs of round; her Ragout of Asparagus calls for 100 shoots; her Wedding Cake calls for 3 lbs. of butter, 3 lbs of sugar, 4 lbs of currants and 2 dozen eggs; and one of her Puff Paste recipes requires 6 lbs of butter, 14 lbs of flour, 8 eggs and 1 lb. of lard.
This book is little known, which is a shame as it contains many recipes which are a bit out of the ordinary.
