The Carolina Housewife

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).