Recent Foodsville Articles by MZanger

MZanger's review of Tit-Bits: Or, How to Prepare a Nice Dish at a Moderate Expense

Mzanger@comcast.net — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:23:13

Mrs. Knight is a great one for naming dishes after people and places. She has a cake for my Boston neighborhood, Jamaica Plain, and dishes for Boston, Beacon Street (presumably the one in Boston) but also Brookline and other Massachusetts towns, and Baltimore and other points as well.

It is not clearly a contributed cookbook, yet so many recipes are attributed to people that it should be fairly easy -- if the are real people -- to identify Mrs. Knight and locate her.

MZanger's review of The New Cyclopaedia of Domestic Economy, and Practical Housekeeper

Mzanger@comcast.net — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:09:16

This is a very large and fascinating collection, taken from a variety of sources. Mrs. Ellet, like Mrs. Child and even Eliza Leslie, had an entire literary career aside from this, her only cookbook. It was first pubished in 1857, identical to this edition, as I have confirmed by comparing an online copy of the 1857 edition with my own copy of the 1872.

As an 1857 book, then, it has a fascinating selection of exotic Jewish recipes from an unknown source, the second printed recipe for strawberry shortcake (MIss Leslie having produced one in 1850), and many other wonderful things. The 1857 edition cannot have been large -- Lowenstein's biography lists a copy in the library of Vassar College only. The 1872 must be more common.

Author comments

Mzanger@comcast.net — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:34:52

This is my book. Best price on the Internet! Contact me on Foodsville with corrections, questions, etc. Or check info on its own site.

--Mark Zanger