The Spirit of Seventy-Six!

In honor of the 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence in the United States, all recipes through July 4, 2026 will be from Centennial and Bicentennial cookbooks and the 1796 first American cookbook. Enjoy this look at the (gastronomic) spirit of ’76 as we head into the sestercentennial.

I’ve also published a Sestercentennial Cookery with recipes and photos!

Fried Apple Slices: Fried Apple Slices, from the ca. 1881 New Centennial Cook Book.; nineteenth century; 1800s; apples; recipe; deep frying; deep fried, deep fryer

This is a wonderful snack or side dish, but it’s also a wonderful addition to sandwiches. You could, presumably, also dredge the apple slices in seasoned flour, or sprinkle them with cinnamon, ginger, or nutmeg after frying, but the flavor of nothing but salted apple is worth having on its own.

Drop in again soon for another vintage recipe! I’ll have a different recipe every Sunday afternoon throughout the year. Keep an eye on this page or subscribe to the RSS feed for further details. You can also browse past featured Club recipes as well as some of the vintage promotional cookbooks I’ve used as sources. And I collect many of these recipes in A Traveling Man’s Cookery Book.

Recipe blogging:

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Don’t make cooking a science. Adapt it as an art. — Vrest Orton (Cooking with Wholegrains)