Fox, Minerva Carr, compiler. The Blue Grass Cook Book. With an Introduction by John Fox, Jr. (NY, 1918) New and Revised Edition. 350pp. No illustrations, as issued; and Gay, Lettie, compiler. 200 Years of Charleston Cooking. Recipes Gathered by Blanche S. Rhett. Introductory and Explanatory Matter by Helen Woodward (NY, 1931) Revised Edition. Original patterned boards. Illustrated with photographs. 305pp.
While both these books of Southern cuisine were compiled and edited by white women, they were landmarks because they were, directly and indirectly, to give “the first known credit… to African American cooks” who originated and produced many of the hundreds of dishes described.
The first edition of the Fox book, which appeared in 1904, published by the company associated with the editor’s brother, famous Kentucky novelist John Fox, Jr., was particularly notable for its 13 photographs by Alvin Langdon Coburn of Black cooks, the “Aunt Dinahs” praised in Fox’s introduction as the “turbaned mistresses” of Kentucky plantation kitchens. Unfortunately, this new Scribners edition of 1918, “revised” to incorporate World War I government standards of food “conservation and economy”, also, perhaps for purposes of wartime economy, eliminated all the fine photos. The Charleston book – revised, after the end of Prohibition, to include alcoholic drink recipes – is less generous in acknowledging Black influence in the kitchens of the fine Charleston homes pictured, its few photos of Black people – fruit and flower vendors and a “potato man” – being racist stereotypes and caricatures.