Skip to main content
Log in

“A Little Gravy in the Dish and Onions in a Tea Cup”: What Cookbooks Reveal About Material Culture

  • Published:
International Journal of Historical Archaeology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Six British colonial and Anglo-American cookbooks from the period 1770–1850 provide insights into the ways in which items of material culture often were used in the past. The multiple functions of many items suggest the need for critical reconsiderations of the functional typologies and status markers so heavily relied upon by historical archaeologists, as well as rethinking of gender associations for some items of material culture.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES CITED

  • Beaudry, M. C., Long, J., Miller, H. M., Neiman, F. D., and Stone, G. W. (1988). A vessel typology for early Chesapeake ceramics: The Potomac Typological System. In Beaudry, M. C. (ed.), Documentary Archaeology in the New World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 51–67.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bryan, L. (1991). The Kentucky Housewife, Facsimile of the 1839 ed., University of South Carolina Press, Columbia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burley, D. V. (1989). Function, meaning, and context: ambiguities in ceramic use by the hivernant Metis of the northwestern Plains. Historical Archaeology 23(1): 97–106.

    Google Scholar 

  • Busch, J. (1987). Second time around: A look at bottle reuse. Historical Archaeology 21(1): 67–80.

    Google Scholar 

  • Child, L. M. (1833). The American Frugal Housewife, Carter, Hendee, Boston, reprint by Applewood Books, Bedford, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farmer, F. M. (1896). The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, Plume edition (1988), New American Library, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hooker, R. J. (ed.) (1984). A Colonial Plantation Cookbook: The Receipt Book of Harriott Pinckney Horry, 1770, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, O. R. (1993). Commercial foods, 1740–1820. Historical Archaeology 27(2): 25–41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, O. R., and Smith, E. A. (1985). Glass of the British Military, ca. 1755–1820. Studies in Archaeology, Architecture, and History, Parks Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKibbin, J. (ed.) (1976). The Frugal Colonial Housewife, by Carter, S. (1772), Dolphin Books, Garden City, NY.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, G. L. (1980). Classification and economic scaling of 19th-century ceramics. Historical Archaeology 14: 1–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, G. L. (1991). A revised set of CC index values for classification and economic scaling of English ceramics from 1787 to 1880. Historical Archaeology 25(1): 1–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Orser, C. E., Jr. (1992). Beneath the material surface of things: Commodities, artifacts, and slave plantations. Historical Archaeology 26(3): 95–104.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ross, A. (1993). Health and diet in 19th-century America: A food historian's point of view. Historical Archaeology 27(2): 42–56.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rutledge, S. (1979). The Carolina Housewife, Facsimile of 1847 ed., University of South Carolina Press, Columbia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, E. M. (1994). Looking at gender and more: Feminist archaeology and a 19th-century millwright's house. Paper presented at the Conference of the Society for Historical and Underwater Archaeology, Vancouver, British Columbia.

  • Seifert, D. J. (1994). Mrs. Starr's profession. In Scott, E. M. (ed.), Those of Little Note: Gender, Race, and Class in Historical Archaeology, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, pp. 149–173.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simmons, A. (1984). The First American Cookbook, a facsimile of American Cookery (1796), Dover, New York.

  • South, S. (1977). Method and Theory in Historical Archaeology, Academic Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wall, D. diZ. (1991). Sacred dinners and secular teas: Constructing domesticity in mid-19th century New York. Historical Archaeology 25(4): 69–81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wall, D. diZ. (1994). The Archaeology of Gender, Plenum, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wallace, L. H. (1918). The Rumford Complete Cook Book, Rumford Chemical Works, Providence, RI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, M. T. (1984). The first American cookbook. In Simmons, A., The First American Cookbook, a facsimile of American Cookery (1796), Dover, New York, pp. vii–xxiv.

  • Yentsch, A. (1987). Why “George Washington's china” is his and not Martha's: Gender symbolism in pottery and porcelain. Paper presented at the 20th annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Savannah, GA.

  • Yentsch, A. (1990). Minimum vessel lists as evidence of change in folk and courtly traditions of food use. Historical Archaeology 24(3): 24–53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yentsch, A. (1991a). The symbolic division of pottery: Sex-related attributes of English and Anglo-American household pots. In McGuire, R. H., and Paynter, R. (eds.), The Archaeology of Inequality, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 192–230.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yentsch, A. (1991b). Access and space, symbolic and material, in historical archaeology. In Walde, D., and Willows, N. D. (eds.), The Archaeology of Gender, Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, pp. 252–262.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yentsch, A. (1991c). Engendering visible and invisible ceramic artifacts, especially dairy vessels. Historical Archaeology 25(4): 132–155.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Scott, E.M. “A Little Gravy in the Dish and Onions in a Tea Cup”: What Cookbooks Reveal About Material Culture. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 1, 131–155 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1027307906388

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1027307906388

Navigation