Mrs. John G. Carlisle's Kentucky Cook Book, Containing Recipes Never Before Published

Chicago, [Il.]: F. Tennyson Neely, Publisher, 1893. Octavo (20.5 x 14 cm.), 249 pages. Table of contents. Evident FIRST EDITION. An anthology saluting Kentucky fare, assembled under the guidance of a hostess transplanted from her native Covington to the District of Columbia, and issued just as the great Panic of 1893 paralyzed the American economy at the outset of Grover Cleveland’s second term. With one hundred twenty-five recipes (a few of them attributed), including: Gumbo Soup, Griddled Oysters, Kentucky Corn Bread, Owendaw (made with hominy, eggs, and milk), Potato Salad (with olives and anchovies), Twelfth Cake (incorporating white wine, brandy, and orange flower water), Kentucky Black Cake, Whortleberry Cake (actually a pudding), Blackberry Wine, Siberian Punch. ~ Despite its appeal to a national audience, a logic can be claimed for assigning the culinary address of Mrs. John G. Carlisle’s Kentucky Cook Book to Covington, where its author was born and is buried, and where her father had been the town’s first mayor. Mary Jane Goodson (Mrs. John Griffin) Carlisle (1834-1905) made a name for herself as a hostess after her husband was elected Speaker of the House, but she achieved a higher notoriety still when, during his service as Secretary of the Treasury, she instituted “cabinet ladies day” receptions on Wednesdays for the wives of executive department officials in the Cleveland administration. Two of her collaborators – Matilda McGrain (Mrs. Walter Quintin) Gresham (1839-1930), the wife of the Secretary of State, and Mary Tapscott Dailey (Mrs. George “General”) Crook (1842-1895), the wife of a military veteran of the Indian Wars – she is likely to have met through Washington channels; but the fourth co-author, Mary Jane Hawkins (Mrs. William Ambrose) Dudley (1824-1901) hailed from Lexington, and was thus perhaps a longtime acquaintance. ~ Printed throughout on page rectos only, with generous margins. In eggshell cloth, gilt lettered, with salmon and yellow chrysanthemums. Cloth is rubbed and soiled with chipping to spine edges. Front hinge opened; rear hinge poor. Good only. [OCLC locates thirty copies; Brown 1114; not in Cagle].