Williamsburg Cookbook

I grew up eating Williamsburg cookbook recipes for special occasions--spoonbread, Yorkshire pudding, and other delicious things. When I started cooking for myself, I bought my own copy of the cookbook, an update from the 90s or 00s. Don't get the update! Get this original cookbook, this 1971/75 version. It has better recipes. The update has changed some quantities and instructions and yields inferior results.

`The Williamsburg Cookbook, Updated and Enlarged!' is one of those books I bought as a souvenir with relatively little thought of actually cooking from it, since I had no strong interest in recreating meals from Colonial Virginia. But then, I reviewed another `period piece' cookbook from Walter Staib of Philadelphia's City Tavern, which has also been transformed into a historically `accurate' culinary location. So, since I saw that this Williamsburg offering came up under a search for exemplars of `Southern' cooking, I thought it only fair that I give it a review. For starters, just like Staib's City Tavern books, the recipes in the Williamsburg book are adapted to modern kitchens with an eye to doing a close simulation of the colonial dish. So, I played my little game of locating how many anachronistic ingredients (those invented after 1775) I could find in the recipes. I was happy to find so few. The ones that stood out were true baking powder, which was invented around 1850 and Worchestershire sauce, invented (by accident) in the 1840's. The few others I found such as `saltines' would have easily found period items. I suspect that it would not be hard to find ship's biscuits in the Virginia capitol of the time. I am happy to allow things such as canned tomatoes, as there is no question in my mind that home canning of vegetables was common. I thankfully found no reference to margarine. I am just a bit skeptical about the prominent use of mayonnaise, especially as the book provides no recipe for homemade mayonnaise, which did not appear in print until 1804. But, I'm sure cooks have been using egg-emulsified oil or fat in the 18th century, even if they didn't use that French name. It's just that I'm sure there was no Hellman's mayonnaise jars in 1776. (All dates are from Alan Davidson's `The Oxford Companion to Food'.) I am just a bit suspicious of the use of bouillon cubes in the place of fresh stock, but I can find no documentation of when dried bouillon was first made. The `Larousse Gastronomique' does refer to it's existing in France as early as 1704, but I believe commercial preparations were not done until the 19th century. Now, allowing for the anachronisms, how accurate are the recipes otherwise. I am not an expert on colonial Virginia cuisine, but I have references from James Villas, who IS something of an expert on Southern cooking, having been writing about it for the last 40 years. So, I compared his recipe for Virginia Brunswick stew to the one from Williamsburg (it happens to be the stew pictured on the cover of the book). Both sources agreed on all principal ingredients except three. Williamsburg (Chowning's Tavern) includes okra and Villas includes fatback and butter. Oddly, Villas also gives a recipe for Georgia Brunswick Stew which does include okra, so I give Williamsburg a B on authenticity, primarily on the exclusion of all fats. While Villas has both fats, like Williamsburg, they are not used to saute anything, so the tech

I spent my honeymoon in Williamsburg and my family returns there every other year. This cookbook has allowed me to relive many happy hours in Colonial Williamsburg. The book is gorgeous and my only complaint is that it needed more photos. Classic colonial Southern cooking is displayed here:Sally Lunn bread, Salamagundi, and the best pound cake I've ever tasted. If you can find it you and anyone who eats the food will be happy. Chow down, y'all.

Rated by "USA Today" as one of the six all-time classic southern cookbooks. With its elegant cover and photographs and distinquished historical narrative, afficionados of the taverns of Colonial Williamsurg (especially the King's Arms Tavern, that the author was hired by the Rockefeller family to run) will gain accolades for replicating the cookbook's user-friendly American colonial recipes. Time and again, my guests have asked me to prepare the eggnog pie I made last year and the wassail. Other favorites are the game pie, Sally Lunn bread and cheese souffle. This is one of those cookbooks that everyone must have on their shelf, like "The Joy of Cooking." Also, if you don't get it here online, you've got to go all the way to Williamsburg, the only other place it's sold. I have also given "The Williamsburg Cookbook" as a gift. It is so beautiful, it could easily be an art book for the coffee table. If you are buying your first copy, I envy you the excitement you'll have on your enchanting find.