Historic Cookbooks
Publication date: 1866
"A Domestic Cook Book: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen” by Malinda Russell
The first cookbook published by an African American author consists of more than 250 recipes, mostly desserts such as sweet potato baked pudding, ginger snaps and sweet tea cake. Very few instructions are included.
About the author: Russell (1812 - unknown) was born and raised in Tennessee as a free woman of color. At about the age of 19, she set out for Liberia. She was robbed on her journey and forced to stop in Lynchburg, Virginia. While there, Fanny Stewart, a slave, taught her to cook. Russell met and married Anderson Vaughan at some point. He passed away four years later. The widow had one child and returned to Tennessee and opened a boarding house. That lasted for three years. She operated a pastry shop for six years and saved her money. In 1864, a “guerrilla party” took her money and threatened her life. She relocated to Paw Paw, Michigan to get out of harms way. While there, she wrote and published her cookbook in hopes of making enough money to return home. However, fire destroyed the town months later with no other traces of Russell.
Publication date: 1881
“What Mrs. Fisher Knows about Old Southern Cooking” by Abby Fisher
The second cookbook published by an African American woman includes 160 Southern recipes published by the Women’s Cooperative Printing Office in San Francisco.
About the author: Fisher (1831 - unknown), a former slave, was born Abby Clifton in Orangeburg, South Carolina. She moved to Mobile, Alabama and later to San Francisco, California. Her husband was named Alexander C. Fisher.
Fisher was awarded two medals: a bronze for best pickles and sauces, and a silver for best assortment of jellies and preserves at the San Francisco Mechanics' Institute Fair in 1880. She was asked to publish a cookbook but she couldn’t read or write. She dictated the recipes to complete the project. In 1882, Fisher was listed as a pickle manufacturer in the in Langley's San Francisco City Directory and the business continued to operate through 1890.
Publication date: 1911
“Good Things to Eat: The First Cookbook by an African American Chef” by Rufus Estes
The first cookbook written and published by a Black chef consists of nearly 600 recipes with simple instructions. It includes dishes such as Creole-style chicken gumbo, chestnut stuffing with truffles and cherry dumplings.
About the author: Estes (1857 – 1939) was born into slavery in Murray County, Tennessee. His family moved to Nashville when he was 10, four years after the Emancipation Proclamation. He found work at a Nashville restaurant where he stay for five years . He relocated to Chicago in 1881 and the Pullman Co. hired him in 1883. He moved up the ranks over the years until he was offered a position as a chef with the Kansas City, Pittsburgh & Gould railroad private car in 1897.