The Spirit of Seventy-Six!

In honor of the 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence, all recipes through August 16, 2026 are from Centennial and Bicentennial cookbooks and the 1796 first American cookbook. Enjoy this look at the (gastronomic) spirit of ’76 as we enjoy the sestercentennial!

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

America’s First Cookies: Cookies, from Amelia Simmons’s 1796 American Cookery, with rosewater icing.; cookies; recipe; coriander; shortbread; eighteenth century; 1700s; American Cookery; Amelia Simmons; rosewater

While there were undoubtedly cookies made in America before these, these were the first cookie recipe in the first known American cookbook, Amelia Simmons’s American Cookery from 1796.

They don’t need to be iced, but a bit of rosewater icing will give them a bit of period flavor beyond merely being shortbread cookies meant to last for weeks at room temperature.

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.

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When I feel sad, I need a bowl of leek and potato soup. — Jacques Pépin (Today's Gourmet: Garlic Soup)