One of the Earliest Creole Cookbooks Cooking in Old Creole Days, 1903 First Edition

Celestine Eustis

First Edition

Eustis, Celestine. Cooking in Old Creole Days, 1903, presents one of the earliest widely circulated printed accounts of Louisiana Creole cuisine and preserves culinary traditions shaped by African American cooks, French colonial influences, Caribbean foodways, and regional Southern ingredients. Written by New Orleans writer and philanthropist Celestine Eustis during a period when Creole culture was becoming a subject of national fascination, the book documents dishes and techniques that developed within the kitchens of Creole households where Black cooks played central roles in shaping regional cuisine. Recipes for dishes such as crab gumbo, crawfish bisque, jambalaya à la Creole, okra gumbo, Hopping John, praline cocoanut, and molasses cake demonstrate the fusion of African diasporic ingredients, French culinary methods, and Gulf Coast agricultural products that defined the food culture of New Orleans at the turn of the twentieth century.

Eustis, Celestine. Cooking in Old Creole Days (La Cuisine Créole à l’usage des petits ménages). New York: R. H. Russell, 1903. First edition. 8vo. Illustrated with eight full-page plates by Harper Pennington, each with a printed tissue guard featuring the musical score and lyrics of a Creole song. Original publisher’s pictorial cloth. The book presents recipes alongside cultural commentary celebrating the distinctive culinary traditions of Creole New Orleans. French titles appear alongside English recipe names, emphasizing the bilingual cultural environment from which these dishes emerged. The introduction by physician and writer S. Weir Mitchell praises the culinary expertise of African American cooks in Southern households while also reflecting the racial paternalism characteristic of early twentieth century commentary on Black labor and domestic service. The volume is illustrated with eight full page plates by Harper Pennington. Each plate is protected by a printed tissue guard bearing the musical score and lyrics of a Creole song, pairing culinary instruction with elements of regional musical culture and reinforcing the book’s portrayal of Creole domestic life.

At the time of its publication, Creole cuisine had become a defining element of New Orleans cultural identity and an object of growing national interest among American readers seeking regional culinary traditions. Works such as Eustis’s cookbook helped introduce Creole foodways to a broader audience while documenting dishes that had long circulated within local households and community networks. Clean interior with crisp illustrations and intact tissues; binding tight with minimal signs of use. Overall near fine condition. This book preserves evidence of the racial and social hierarchies that structured domestic labor in the American South, where the knowledge and artistry of Black cooks shaped the cuisine even as their contributions were often filtered through the voices of white authors and publishers.

Item #22777

Price: $1,800.00