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.

Tomato Jam: Tomato Jam, from Mrs. Winslow’s Domestic Receipt Book for 1876.; lemons; tomatoes; nineteenth century; 1800s; recipe; jams and jellies; jam, marmalade; America’s Centennial; 1876

If you have tomatoes coming in now, this is a wonderful way to use them and to experience a wonderful but almost disappeared flavor. This is from “Mrs. Winslow’s Domestic Receipt Book for 1876”. Mrs. Winslow’s book was not specifically a centennial celebration: it was a yearly book, with a new version coming out every year. It was apparently an advertisement for a couple of patent medicines, but the recipes—possibly from readers—were interesting and occasionally, as here, very nice.

This is a wonderful jam for toast or biscuits, or for mixing with yogurt. It is a very Bradburian summer flavor of fresh tomatoes preserved in a jar.

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)