Cookbooks offer a unique and valuable way to examine American life. Far from being recipe compendiums alone, cookbooks can reveal worlds of information about the daily lives, social practices, class aspirations, and cultural assumptions of people in the past. With a historical introduction and contextualizing annotations, this fascinating historical compilation of excerpts from five Civil War-era cookbooks presents a compelling portrait of cooking and eating in the urban north of the 1860s United States.

"Discusses the everyday life, cooking methods, foods, and celebrations of Union soldiers during the Civil War. Includes recipes and sidebars"--

Godey's Lady's Book, perhaps the most popular magazine for women in nineteenth-century America, had a national circulation of 150,000 during the 1860s. The recipes (spelled ""receipts"") it published were often submitted by women from both the North and the South, and they reveal the wide variety of regional cooking that characterized American culture. There is a remarkable diversity in the recipes, thanks to the largely rural readership of Godey's Lady's Book and to the immigrant influence on the country in the 1860s. Fish and game were readily available in rural America, and the number of seafood recipes testifies to the abundance of the coastal waters and rivers. The country cook was a frugal cook, particularly during wartime, so there are a great many recipes for leftovers and seasonal produce. In addition to a wide sampling of recipes that can be used today, Civil War Recipes includes information on Union and Confederate army rations, cooking on both homefronts, and substitutions used during the war by southern cooks.

"Discusses the everyday life, cooking methods, foods, and celebration of Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. Includes recipes and sidebars"--

Every Civil War buff will want to own this unique cookbook, which takes the reader right into the kitchens of 19th-century America. Illustrated with wonderful period photographs, it intertwines history and food for a fascinating new look at the lives of Civil War soldiers and their families. Traditional recipes, illustrated with full-color photographs and highlighted with historical anecdotes, include instructions for recreating treats sent in care packages to soldiers in the field, camp dishes, and special meals.

As companions to the first and second volumes in the American Food in History series we offer selections of recipes, updated and tested by food editor Jennifer Billock, using measurements and techniques that modern readers can use in their own kitchen. Arranged by main meal occasions (breakfast, picnic or lunch, dinner, dessert) these recipes--some familiar, some curious, all intriguing--will allow family and friends to get a "taste of the times" with their own "Civil War era" meals. The original versions of these recipes (and many more) can be found in Food in the Civil War Era: The North and Food in the Civil War Era: The South, edited by Helen Zoe Veit, along with fascinating essays about the history and the times.

This unconventional culinary history explores the campfire experiences shared by soldiers on both sides of the Civil War and includes recipes commonly used on the battlefield.