Exhibit Opening - The Great Ladies of Cookery

Great Ladies of Cookery
Exhibit: August - October 2009
Opening Tea and Conversation with the Curators
August 2, 1-3 pm
Jack & Elaine Whitehorn Memorial Library, Caledon Victoria City
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Victoria%20City/59/196/23


This exhibit on female cookbook authors in Britain and America, sponsored by Caledon Cuisine, takes the viewer from the kitchens of the mid-Eighteenth to those of the early Twentieth century.

During this period, publishing of any sort by women, cookbooks included, was relatively rare.  While the "glamor cookbooks" of the day, detailing the dishes served at the tables of the aristocracy, were written by men, there is a distinct chronology of vastly popular cookbooks written by women, for the women who, as housewives or hired cooks, were in charge of the majority of kitchens in both town and country.

Roughly once a generation, a cookbook would be published that would become a sort of standard kitchen manual, going through multiple reprintings.  The authors were a mixed lot, describing themselves variously as "A Lady," housewives, cooks in private service, and cooking teachers. What they had in common was that each captured the culinary idiom of her generation.

Beginning with the 1747 Art of Cookery by Hannah Glasse (who never said "first catch your hare, although that's what she's famous for), and the 1796 American Cookery by Amelia Simmons ("An American Orphan") we explore the careers and publishing of such figures as Sarah Heston Tyson Rorer (who is in some measure responsible for Thanksgiving day as it's celebrated in the US), ending up with the work of the two Very Great Ladies, both well-remembered today: Isabella Beeton and Fannie Farmer.  

Although the subject of cookbook publishing, even with the limitations "In Britain and America" and "by female authors" is far vaster than we were able to explore in this modest exhibit, we hope what we present will serve as an appetizer. We have included various resources we hope will be found useful by those who wish to pursue the topic further.

 The exhibit ends with a display of in-world versions of some of the works discussed here, for the reading pleasure of Caledon and Our Guests.  

All materials in this exhibit are either free to copy, or may be bought for $0, should you wish to take any of them home for further consideration.

Curators Eleanor Anderton, EppieBlack Wheatcliffe, and JJ Drinkwater invite you to look, read, savour, and enjoy!