Tag: The Virginia Housewife
-
Tracing the Origins of Mary Randolph’s ‘Fried Chickens’ Recipe
Mary Randolph, author of the seminal Southern cookery book, The Virginia Housewife (1824), was raised in an environment in which English culinary influences were strong. Indeed, she was arguably, at core, an English cook. Many writers gloss over this rather obvious fact, and certain dishes in Randolph’s book are regularly highlighted because they stand out as antecedents…
-
Mary Randolph’s English Cookery
The Virginia Housewife (first published in 1824) – authored by the slave-owning white antebellum Virginian, Mary Randolph – is widely considered to constitute the earliest printed example of a ‘Southern’ cookery book. Randolph came from one of the elite families of Virginia, which traced its roots in the South to the union of William and…