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.

Bicentennial Cranberry-Oatmeal Crisps: Mary Starks’s Crisp Oatmeal Cookies, from the 1976 America’s Bicentennial of Hesperia, Michigan.; seventies; 1970s; cookies; oatmeal; cranberries; recipe; America’s Bicentennial; Hesperia, Michigan

Mary Starks submitted these cookies to my hometown church group’s Bicentennial cookbook, and they are amazing. The original calls for raisins, but I generally prefer cranberries with my oatmeal snacks.

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:

Originals:

Inspirations:

Archives:

This is what enjoying life is all about. To be together. Food, family, friends. Wine. — Jacques Pépin (Heart & Soul: Fete Des Boules)