The Virginia House Wife

Originally published in 1838, Randolphs work was more than just a regional cookbook. While gathering the best of Southern cooking, it also provided a picture of dishes that were popular around the country at the time.

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

Reproduction of the original: The Virginia Housewife: or Methodical Cook by Mary Randolph

"Virginia, or the Old Dominion, as her children delight to call her, has always been famed for the style of her living ... Tearing the glittering arms of King George from their sideboards, and casting them, with their costly plate and jewels, as offerings into the lap of the Continental Congress, they introduced in their homes that new style of living in which, discarding all the showy extravagance of the old, and retaining only its inexpensive graces, they succeeded in perfecting that system which, surviving to this day, has ever been noted for its beautiful and elegant simplicity. This system, which combines the thrifty frugality of New England with the less rigid style of Carolina, has been justly pronounced, by the throngs of admirers who have gathered from all quarters of the Union around the generous boards of her illustrious sons, as the very perfection of domestic art." -- Preface.

Charming guide, published in 1824, offers directions for making rabbit soup, beef steak pie, fried calf's feet, shoulder of mutton with celery sauce, leg of pork with pease pudding, and other culinary treats.

This "incomparable guide to Southern cuisine", according to Time magazine, includes a preliminary check list of the cookbooks of South Carolina which were published before 1935. A facsimile of the 1847 edition.

A nineteenth-century guide to authentic early-American cooking that includes recipes for a variety of dishes, an introduction to the food and customs of the South, and instructions for making soap and starch, cleaning silver, drying herbs, and performing other usefull tasks.