The Robert E. Lee Family Cooking and Housekeeping Book

Part cookbook, part culinary history, part family history, this book is an engaging and enlightening glimpse into the household of a well-to-do, mid-nineteenth-century Virginia family. Seeking to learn more about her ancestors' daily lives, Anne Zimmer, great-granddaughter of Robert E. and Mary Lee, turned to her great-grandmother’s small, now shabby notebook. Packed with recipes, shopping lists, and other domestic jottings, the notebook opened an intimate window onto an earlier way of life.

With recipes for breads, cakes, puddings, sweets, soups, main dishes, vegetables, drinks, and home remedies, The Robert E. Lee Family Cooking and Housekeeping Book will serve as a ready reference on traditional American cookery. For each entry, the author provides the original recipe, helpful notes on the ingredients and techniques employed, and instructions — based on careful kitchen testing — for adapting the recipe in the modern kitchen. Peppered throughout with family stories and illustrated with photographs from the Lee family and other archives, the book is both an informative investigation of southern foodways and a fascinating look at one family’s household history.