The Appledore Cook Book

Containing Practical Receipts for Plain and Rich Cooking

Published in Boston in 1872, this volume in the American Antiquarian Cookbook Collection by a well-known and respected cooking teacher and author, an associate of the highly influential Boston Cooking School, provides practical recipes for new brides and housekeepers that were specifically created and tested to be easier and less expensive than other books available at that time.

Published in 1872 in Boston, The Appledore Cook Book was authored by renowned cooking teacher and writer Maria Parloa to be a go-to cookbook for new brides and housekeepers, and it was specifically geared toward simpler recipes with less expensive ingredients. This first of many cookbooks by Parloa was inspired by her time spent cooking at the Appledore House hotel on the Isles of Shoals, Maine. The Appledore Cook Book contains the first known recipe for tomato chowder (known today as tomato soup) as well as delectable family-sized recipes such as Lamb Chops, Dumplings for Soup, Baked Potatoes, Fried Ham, Buckwheat Cakes, Apple Cake, Ginger Snaps, and Pumpkin Pie. 

 

Emphasizing the purpose of this popular cookbook, Parloa states in the preface, “The great trouble with all the cook books which I have known . . . is, that they are too expensive, and that they use weight instead of measure, and also that they take for granted that the young housekeeper knows many things which she really does not.” With The Appledore Cook Book, Parloa provides just such a cookbook of simple-yet-tasty, inexpensive meals—a theme as popular in the 19th century as it is today.

 

This edition of The Appledore Cook Book was reproduced by permission from the volume in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1812 by Isaiah Thomas, a Revolutionary War patriot and successful printer and publisher, the society is a research library documenting the lives of Americans from the colonial era through 1876. The society collects, preserves, and makes available as complete a record as possible of the printed materials from the early American experience. The cookbook collection comprises approximately 1,100 volumes. 

About the Author

 Maria Parloa was a well-known cooking teacher and culinary author as well as the food editor at Good Housekeeping for many years. She established two of her own cooking schools and was also a teacher at the Boston Cooking School. Besides The Appledore Cook Book, Parloa authored Miss Parloa’s New Cook Book, Camp Cookery, Home Economics, and Miss Parloa’s Young Housekeeper. She was an early pioneer of home economics and was one of the first cooking celebrities to endorse products. She resided throughout the northeastern United States and lived from 1843 to 1909.

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