The recipe of "Queen Cake" is purely a social desire. In the British model, butter is mixed into cream, a pound of sugar, a pound of quarter flour, 65,438+00 eggs, a glass of wine, half a teacup of delicate rose water and spices. Plumb Cake provides a huge 2 1 egg display platform for struggling housewives, which is filled with expensive dried fruits and preserves, nuts, spices, wine and cream.
Just a few pages away, Johnny Cake, Federal Pan Cake, Buckwheat Cake and Indian Palm Cake made of familiar ingredients such as corn flour, flour, milk, water and a little fat are all prepared "before the fire" or on hot pot. They symbolize a simple, well-managed and generous American family. A dialogue on how to balance luxury and simplicity in American life has begun.
American cooking sold well for more than 30 years, mainly to New England, new york and the Midwest, and was later forgotten. Since the 1950s, it has attracted enthusiastic audiences from historians to home cooks. The Library of Congress recently listed American cooking as one of 88 "books that shape America".
This cookbook, which appears in many legal and plagiarized versions, is not only a cookbook, but also a cultural phenomenon. At the beginning of the Republic of China, Americans had a heated debate about their identity; With the freedom in Britain and the establishment of * * * and * * *, people need to stick to a unique American way of life. In the words of Mary Tolford Wilson, a 20th century scholar, this small cookbook can be interpreted as "another declaration of American independence".
This book has achieved this feat in two particularly important ways. First, it is part of a broader initiative led by Connecticut's social and political elite, which promotes Yankee culture and certain brands of Mercer as models of American life and good taste. At the same time, the author also talks directly with ordinary American women to discuss how to deal with daily challenges and setbacks.
The title page of American Cuisine (image courtesy of the Library of Congress) American Cuisine is a project in Connecticut. There, an agricultural society mainly composed of small independent farms can benefit from the trade network near and far. However, in order to surpass pure self-sufficient agriculture, it must be open to these new markets and the whole Merck world. The leaders of the Federalist Party in Connecticut have close ties with influential newspapers, printers and booksellers, and can reveal an American vision that agriculture will prosper with the help of Mercer, not oppose it.
Jeffersonians who disagree with this view emphasize that rural life is an end in itself. For them, the future of American society depends on the popularity of small farmers. Two camps participated in an open debate about luxury goods: Are they totems of prosperity or symbols of social decline? Some American thinkers, such as Joel Barlow, the author of the popular poem The Pudding in a hurry, insist that simplicity should be the basis of American cooking and eating. However, the federalists in Connecticut believe that this asceticism leaves too little room for the Meng people's desire to improve their destiny. These moderates tend to encourage restrained gentlemen. For women in this situation, the only way is to "abide by the norms and maxims that have stood the test of time, and these norms and maxims will always establish women's character, a moral person." In order not to be ignored, Simmons once again reminds readers that, unlike women who have "parents, brothers or wealth" to defend their rashness, "poor orphans" must "rely entirely on their own personality".
The book seems to sell well, although Simmons accused on the errata page that "the design imposed on her damaged the sales of the book". She blamed these evils on the people she "commissioned recipes" to prepare for the media. In the second edition, she thanked fashionable ladies, or what she called "respectable people". Back to her theme: the "shocking mistakes" in the first edition, which are either due to the ignorance of the copywriter or the malice of the copywriter to the publishing house, all her problems stem from her unfortunate situation; She didn't have "enough education to prepare for the media". In order to avoid any criticism that the reprint may incur, she wrote: "Remember, this is the performance and influence under all these unfavorable conditions that usually occur, an orphan.
This part aroused people's sympathy. It seems hard for women of her time to resist the combination of Simmons' orphan status and her collection of cookbooks, perhaps in part because she implies that evil is as much as her cookbooks. When the penniless housewife opened the door to American cooking, she found a guide to a better life, which was the promise of her new country. However, at the end of 18, there are hidden worries and dangers under the surface of American life, especially for women on the edge of society. In a country that is still brewing, even a simple project, such as the stacking of a cookbook, can trigger complex emotions. American Cooking provides American readers with the best choice of food and dining, and also tells the sufferings faced by unfortunate Americans, including Amelia Simmons, who seems to be an American orphan.