Mrs. Porter’s New Southern Cookery Book: Companion for Frugal and Economical Housekeepers

Condition: Light tan cloth hardbound boards are in beautiful and excellent condition with only a small blemish to the rear board, no edgewear nor bumping or wear to the corners - all are sharp. Spine is straight and firm with black text that is bright with no fading, slight curl to the bottom of the back strip but no wear. Hinges are firmly attached to the endpapers with no cracking. Text block is solid, and all pages are firmly attached. Previous owners name on front endpaper. The interior pages are clean with no tears, chips, creases or other previous owner marks.

With food prices on the rise what book could be more beneficial then "Mrs. Porter's New Southern Cookery Book and Companion for Frugal and Economical Housekeepers; Carefully Prepared and Practically tested Recipes for all Kinds of Plain and Fancy Cookies. This book is a 1974 facsimile republished based on an original 1871 copy held in the library of Louis Szathmáry. It is one of the 15 volumes of cookbooks in the "Cookery Americana" series that were all produced from Szathmáry's many thousands of cookbooks in his library. The introduction includes historical information about the original cookbook and suggested recipes from Szathmáry. While his suggestions and the cookie recipes might be great to try today, some others might be questionable.

Louis Szathmary (1919 – 1996) was an icon in the culinary arts industry. He learned to cook in the Hungarian army but became a pioneering force in the food service profession after emigrating to the US in 1951. While he best known for heading the Chicago restaurant The Bakery and writing the bestseller "The Chef's Secret Cookbook" he also developed the first frozen dinners for Stouffer Food Corp (think Stouffer's classic Frozen Spinach Souffle). Equally important he was a self-professed bibliophile who began collecting books shortly after arriving in American with culminated in a collection of 45,000 books and culinary materials. In 1989 the various collections were donated to universities across America (his cookbooks and culinary artifacts now make up the foundation of the Johnson & Wales University Culinary Archives & Museum).