The United States practical receipt book: or, Complete book of reference, for the manufacturer, tradesman, agriculturist or housekeeper; containing many thousands valuable receipts, in all the useful and domestic arts, by a practical chemist. 

The United States practical receipt book: or, Complete book of reference, for the manufacturer, tradesman, agriculturist or housekeeper; containing many thousands valuable receipts, in all the useful and domestic arts, by a practical chemist. 

Philadelphia

Lindsay & Blakiston

1849

There were a number of early American cookery books like this one that were encyclopedic in content, but none by “a practical chemist,” which helps explains why there is, alongside a recipe for “Currant Wine,” also one for “Clark’s Process for making White Lead (American Patent.)” Indeed, similar chemical recipes for industry and trade outweigh ones for food and gardening. Nevertheless, the boldness of the title alone suggests a country hungry for all types of information, whether to feed and care for a household, or establish a new trade or business. It was a nation on the move.

From the collection of Peter I. Berg