The Carolina Housewife

By Sarah Rutledge and Anna W. Rutledge

Book Overview

Take a step back in time between the covers of this petite, yet enlightening, volume featuring nearly 550 receipts (recipes) collected by Sarah Rutledge, daughter of Edward Rutledge, a South Carolina governor and the youngest delegate to sign the Declaration of Independence. This edition is a replica of the 1847 original, published anonymously as The Carolina Housewife by a Lady of Charleston because, as Anna Wells Rutledge notes in her introduction, "the name of a Charleston woman appeared in print but thrice--when born, when married, and when buried."

Recipes include Beaufort rice bread, hommony fritters, okra soup, baked shrimps and tomatoes, stewed spinach, baked plum pudding, and ginger pound cake. A detailed index divides the book into chapters for breakfast breads and cakes, soups, fish and seafood, meats, poultry, sauces, vegetables, eggs and cheese, pastries and puddings, ices, preserves, liqueurs (medicinal, of course), pickles, tea cakes, and miscellaneous covering items like herbs, candies, and food coloring.

The introduction offers family history, a who's who of Charleston society, and a sense of what life was like for the social elite. It also demystifies terms such as gill (one-half cup), salaeratus (baking soda), shaddock (grapefruit), and what it means to "brown it with a salamander" (to broil using a hot iron).

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0872493830
• ISBN13: 9780872493834
• Release Date: January 1979
• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.2" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

A Must for Carolinian Cooks

If you are from South Carolina and you love southern cooking, then you should have The Carolina Housewife in your kitchen. It is fascinating to learn what SCarolinians were eating in the nineteenth century. Spend an evening in the past having a nineteenth-century meal! Learn how to make your own mayonnaise, ginger beer, hommony, etc. The University of South Carolina Press should be commended for keeping this book in print. Perhaps they will consider a paperback edition in the future.