The first such recipes appeared in patent medicine cookbooklets and almanacs. The intent of these small pamphlets was to promote manufacturers’ medical products to housewives. The booklets usually included descriptions of products or services and testimonials from satisfied customers. The recipes usually had little to do with the medical products being sold. Good examples include Mrs. Winslow’s Domestic Receipt Book, published annually from 1861 to 1879, which promoted the medicines of Jeremiah Curtis and John I. Brown of Boston. An even longer series was the Ransom’s Family Receipt Book, published annually from 1868 to 1925, which promoted the medicines of David Ransom and Company of Buffalo, New York. Both annuals were thirty-six-page pamphlets that were about half recipes and half advertising and testimonials. Druggists distributed them free to customers, who saved them for future reference. Another famous patent medicine maker who also produced cookbooklets was Lydia Pinkham. Her Vegetable Compound for “female complaints” was widely advertised, and tens of thousands of copies of dozens of different cookbooklets were distributed by the company that bore her name. This genre declined after the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 knocked many patent medicines off the market.
