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By Rose McIlveen
Time was when a whole generation of housewives plucked their Fannie Farmer cookbook off the shelf to get a head start on dinner. They probably didn't give any thought to the fact that Fannie, the spinster lady from Boston, took the guess-work out of cooking.A mere century ago Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cookbook was published in 1896.
But it was 200 years ago that Amelia Simmons published her book with the long title -- American Cookery, or the Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry and Vegetables, and the Best Modes of Making Puff-Pastries, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards and Preserves, and All Kinds of Cakes, from the Imperial Plum to Plain Cake -- Adapted to This Country and All Grades of Life.
"Simmons was the first person to compile a cookbook based on American ingredients, and it includes things like recipes for pumpkin pie and other traditional dishes we associate with Thanksgiving, as well as cornbread and other recipes based on ingredients from the New World," said William Cagle, head librarian emeritus of the Lilly Library on the Indiana University Bloomington campus. "So that's why her book is regarded as the first real American cookbook."
The Lilly Library now has more than 2,200 cookbooks in its collection.