The Cook’s Own Book: Being a Complete Culinary Encyclopedia: Consisting of All Valuable Recipes For Cooking Meat, Fish, and Fowl.

LEE, N.K.M..

Item Number: 99347

Boston: Munroe and Francis; New York, Charles S. Francis, and David Felt; Philadelphia, Carey and Lea, and Grigg and Elliot, 1832.

First edition, first issue, of “the first alphabetically arranged culinary encyclopaedia to appear in the United States” (Oxford Companion to Food, 17), and one of the most popular American cookbooks of the 19th century; with the woodcut diagram showing cuts of beef on page xxxii, no mention of Lyman Thurston & Co. on the copyright page, and 1832 as the date of both printing and copyright (Lowenstein, 160; Cagle & Stafford, 447). Octavo, bound in full contemporary calf with gilt titles and tooling to the spine, red morocco spine label. In very good condition with period recipes affixed to the front free endpaper with a pin. Scarce and desirable.

One of the most popular American cookbooks of the 19th century, Mrs. N.K.M. Lee's The Cook's Own Book contains a compendium of of recipes compiled from diverse British and American sources as well as many of the Boston housekeeper's own recipes. The book became so popular it was published in at least a dozen different printings between 1832 and 1865. The book contains recipes for cooking meat, fish, fowl, soups, gravies, and pastries which were published or invented between 1802 and 1832; particularly the very best of those in the Cook's Oracle, Cook's Dictionary, and other systems of domestic economy.