(Southern - Kentucky) [Ladies of the Presbytarian Church, Paris, KY.] Housekeeping in the Blue Grass

xv, [1], 190 pp. Illus. with 18 pages of ads for local businesses and products. Gilt-lettered & dec. brown cloth. New and Enlarged Edition. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke, 1879.

One of the most important early Kentucky cookbooks, with recipes for regional favorites like stuffed ham, okra soup, gumbo, chow chow, Kentucky cornbread, rice corn-meal bread, green corn fritters, fried peaches, cashaw, cymblings, peach marmalade, whisky punch, catawba punch, brandy peaches, etc.

From the introduction, the importance of the work is parsed: "  …first, of its containing recipes of dishes which have gratified the appetites of families and guests of some of the best housekeepers in this far-famed region; secondly, and by way of climax, in that it was conceived in the earnest desire of the ladies connected with the ‘Missionary Society’ of the Southern Presbyterian Church, Paris, Ky., to do something more in the way of benevolence than was found practicable in the use of the needle." 

Several old manuscript recipes written on blank pages inserted by publisher for this purpose, for sweet pickle, Sally Lunn, etc. Contemporaneous owner's name (Mrs. Louis Gros) to front flyleaf, dated 1879, and her manuscript recipes to two pages on blank lined paper in rear. Owner's neat dog-earing to numerous pages, chipping to spine ends, rubbing to corners; inner joints cracking, else good - a scarce example of Reconstruction-era Southern cooking. 

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