AMERICAN COOKERY.. The Cook Not Mad, or Rational Cookery: being a collection of original and selected receipts, embracing not only the art of curing various kinds of meats and vegetables for future use, but of cooking, in its general acceptation, to the taste, habits, and degrees of luxury, prevalent with the American publick, in town and country. : To which are added, directions for preparing comforts for the sick-room; together with sundry miscellaneous kinds of information, of importance to housekeepers in general, nearly all tested by experience.1830

Watertown: Published by Knowlton & Rice, First edition, 12mo (137 x 69 mm), 120pp., copyright notice and errata leaf pasted to verso of title as often, slightly browned throughout, occasional light staining, portion torn from lower quarter of p.41/2, publisher's linen-backed printed blue-grey paper covered wooden boards, upper cover very faded and with 3 holes showing wooden boards beneath, lower cover with figure more visible, joints cracked, preserved in calf-backed solander box, spine gilt. FIRST EDITION IN THE ORIGINAL BINDING OF THIS NOTED EARLY AMERICAN COOKBOOK. The anonymous author advocates the use of American ingredients such as cranberries, corn, turkeys, and watermelon, promising not to introduce "English, French and Italian methods of rendering things indigestible... These evils are attempted to be avoided. Good republican dishes and garnishing, proper to fill an every day bill of fare, from the condition of the poorest to the richest individual, have been principally aimed at". Provenance: Lucia A. Field, ownership signature on front paste-down, and John Field, faint pencil inscription.