Ingredients tell us what to cook; instructions tell us how. Look closely at recipes from one place or time and you'll learn more about people and food.
Printed words assume the cook can read. Exotic or imported ingredients assume enough household income for little luxuries like desserts. Cookbooks mostly inform us about educated, middle-class women, such as Martha Skolfield.
Martha collected numerous cookbooks, which can still be found in the Skolfield-Whittier House in Brunswick. She kept a notebook in which she copied recipes from friends or newspapers.
