Evelyn Rose Culinary History Lecture • What Mrs. Fisher Knew, and What We Know Now

Evelyn Rose, PharmD, has been a community historian in San Francisco for nearly 20 years. She was a docent and volunteer historian at Muir Woods National Monument for 15 years and received The President’s Gold Level Volunteer Service Award during the Obama Administration. After launching her history blog, Tramps of San Francisco, in 2012 to rediscover some of the forgotten histories of the City by the Bay, in 2014 she founded the Glen Park Neighborhoods History Project (GPNHP) and subsequently rediscovered several historic “firsts” in her district. The GPNHP has received the Walter G. Jebe, Sr. Neighborhood Award from the San Francisco History Association, and Evelyn was awarded a Certificate of Honor by the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco for her work. She continues to research the life histories of Abby and Alexander Fisher, who resided just over the hill from Glen Park in Noe Valley. She published a preliminary summary of her research in Repast, a publication of the Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor, in Winter 2022.

What Mrs. Fisher Knew, and What We Know Now: Rediscovering the Life of Cookbook Author and Entrepreneur Abby Fisher — Rediscovered at auction in 1984, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, Pickles, Preserves, etc. by Mrs. Abby Fisher had been absent from culinary circles for nearly a century. The book is now widely regarded as the second cookbook published by an African American, and the first by a person who was formerly enslaved. Until recently, knowledge of Mrs. Fisher’s life was largely limited to the autobiographical details she provided in her preface. Drawing from ongoing research, this presentation will explore what more has been discovered about Mrs. Fisher’s significant life history and that of her husband, Alexander, and trace their experiences in Mobile, Alabama, and San Francisco.