The Atlanta Exposition Cookbook (Brown Thrasher Books)

Published in 1895 as a souvenir of the Woman’s Building at the Cotton States and International Exposition held in Atlanta, this charming cookbook offers readers an opportunity to try recipes that were favorites of their grandmothers and great-grandmothers. In gathering the recipes, Mrs. Wilson sought to preserve “valuable old Southern receipts from antebellum days that have been almost lost in the ignorance of the up-to-date cook.” Here is a delightful array of soups, breads, desserts, and main dishes: Roast Pigeon, Terrapin Stew, Temperance Mince Meat, Gumbo for 3 O’clock Dinner, many versions of Sally Lund, and of course Jeff Davis Pudding. In each case Wilson has identified the woman who gave her the recipe. In her introduction, historian Darlene R. Roth looks at the book as social history and tells us something about turn-of-the-twentieth-century cookery and the women who were involved in the great Atlanta exposition.