The New Art of Cookery, According to the Present Practice

Being a Complete Guide to all Housekeepers on a Plan Entirely New Consisting of Thirty Eight Chapters

Published in Philadelphia in 1792, this volume in the American Antiquarian Cookbook Collection by an English author was the first cookbook that included specifically American ingredients. Although it was aimed at the American colonial audience, the book was written and first published in Britain.

Published in 1792 in Philadelphia, The New Art of Cookery was the first cookbook published specifically for an American market that included New World ingredients, and it was unique until publication of Amelia Simmons’s groundbreaking American-authored cookbook, American Cookery. While author Richard Briggs was a British culinary writer, he adapted this extensive collection of recipes for American cuisine and ingredients, as evidenced in the numerous recipes for turkey and stuffing a turkey. Highlighting the wide array of delectable meals available in the colonies in the late 18th century, The New Art of Cookery included recipes such as green pea soup, stewing oysters, broiling leg of turkey, baking herring, frying artichokes, lobster pie, and potato puddings, as well as Directions for Seafaring Men, Directions for the Sick, and How to Keep Garden Vegetables. With its wealth of information and wide array of recipes, The New Art of Cookery was understandably essential to the 18th century cook, and it is of great historical significance today.

 

This edition of The New Art of Cookery, According to the Present Practice 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

 Richard Briggs was an English cookbook author. He was a cook for many years at the Glove Tavern, White Hart Tavern, and Temple Coffee-House.

This website contains affiliate links. If you buy something through one of those links, you don’t pay a penny more, but we receive a small commission.