American Cookbooks

The history of cookbook publishing in the United States exemplifies the abundance and diversity that characterize American society. In recent years a flow of cookbooks numbering in the thousands has steadily issued from American publishing houses. This is in stark contrast to the record of the early years; America came late to cookbook publishing. Although the settlers carried cookbooks with them to the New World and imported cookbooks, especially from England, and kept manuscript receipt books, cooks in the original colonies had been preparing food for more than 100 years before the first cookbook was published in America.