Cookbook

November 23

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (November 23, 1773).

“Wedding-Cakes.”

Frederick Kreitner made and sold sweet treats at his “CONFECTIONARY” in Charleston in the early 1770s.  In an advertisement in the November 23, 1773, edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, he expressed “his most grateful Thanks to the Gentlemen and Ladies, who have favoured him with their Custom” and solicited the patronage of new and returning customers.  The confectioner listed several of the items he made and sold, including macaroons, “Tea-Cakes of all Kinds, Sugar-Plumbs, [and] preserved Pine-Apples, Oranges, Strawberries, Ginger, Lemons, and Almonds.”  Kreitner also advertised that he sold “Wedding-Cakes.”

What distinguished a wedding cake from other cakes in colonial Charleston?  In “Wedding Cake: A Slice of History,” Carol Wilson examines a variety of traditions, including English traditions that colonizers brought with them to North America.  According to Wilson, “bride cake, the predecessor of the modern wedding cake,” replaced bride pie in the seventeenth century.  “Fruited cakes, as symbols of fertility and prosperity, gradually became the centerpieces for weddings.”  However, a “much less costly bride cake took the simpler form of two large rounds of shortcrust pastry sandwiched together with currants and sprinkled with sugar on the top.”  This simple type of cake “could easily be cooked on a bakestone on the hearth.”  Wilson also reports, “Bride cake covered with white icing first appeared sometime in the seventeenth century.”  In 1769, Elizabeth Raffald, known for the recipes and other household hints she published in England, “was the first to offer the combination of bride cake, almond cake, and royal icing.”  In 1773, Raffald published the third edition of The Experienced English Housekeeper, for the Use and Ease of Ladies, Housekeepers, Cooks.  It contained nearly nine-hundred recipes, including instructions “To make a BRIDE CAKE,” “To make ALMOND-ICEING for the BRIDE CAKE,” and “To make SUGAR ICEING for the BRIDE CAKE.”  Raffald considered these recipes so important that she placed them first in chapter 11, following and introduction that offered “Observations upon CAKES.”

Prospective customers in Charleston had expectations about what distinguished wedding cakes from “Tea-Cakes” and other cakes that Kreitner made and sold.  By including wedding cakes among the confections in his advertisement, Kreitner aided in further diffusing traditions associated with new marriages and presented himself as an authority who could assist customers who wished to adhere to contemporary fashions and rituals.

March 4

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

Boston-Gazette (March 2, 1772).

“THE FRUGAL HOUSEWIFE … By SUSANNAH CARTER.”

In 1772, Benjamin Edes and John Gill, printers of the Boston-Gazette, published an American edition of The Frugal Housewife, or Complete Woman Cook by Susannah Carter of London.  The book included “Five Hundred approved Receipts” for everything from roasting and frying to sauces and soups to tarts and puddings to jellies and custards as well as instructions for preserving, pickling, and candying various foods.  In addition, Carter provided “Various BILLS of FARE, For DINNERS and SUPPERS in every Month of the Year” to guide readers in consulting the many recipes and choosing which items to prepare together.  The book also featured “a copious Index of the whole” to help readers find the recipes.  Edes and Gill promised that “Any Person, by attending to the Instructions given in this Book, may soon attain to a compleat Knowledge in the Art of Cookery.”

The printers marketed The Frugal Housewife in their own newspaper, but they also turned to other publications in their effort to create a larger market for what they believed had the potential to be a popular American edition of a cookbook first published in London in the 1760s.  On March 2, 1772, they ran advertisements in both the Boston Evening-Post and the Boston-Gazette.  Three days later, they placed an advertisement in the Massachusetts Spy.  The notices in the other newspapers were not as elaborate as the one that appeared in their own.  The version in the Boston-Evening Post, for instance, did not include the price nor the nota bene assuring prospective customers that they would acquire “a complete Knowledge” of cooking.  The version in the Massachusetts Spy, on the other hand, included both of those items as well as a note that the book “contains more in Quantity than most other Books of a much higher Price.”  It did not, however, feature the distinctive typography with only two items on each line that made the notices in the other newspapers occupy significantly more space.  Instead, a dense list of the contents comprised most of the content of the advertisement in the Massachusetts Spy.

Edes and Gill sought to expand their marketing and sales by placing advertisements in multiple newspapers.  Though they exercised control over the copy, they did not exert as much influence when it came to the format.  Compositors who labored in other printing offices made decisions about the appearance of Edes and Gill’s advertisements for The Frugal Housewife.