nyone who has handled any amount of mid-19th century paper has seen many, many examples of advertising booklets masquerading more or less dishonestly as something other than what they really were: I have seen “songsters” containing ONE song...and fifteen pages of advertising. This book is an exception to the rule: it actually is “valuable and interesting”! Yes, there are advertisements for Dr. Stafford’s products; but a good two-thirds of the pages are given over to recipes and household hints. While the cover—apparently accurately—trumpets the inclusion of 100 recipes from New-York City’s Metropolitan Hotel (a large cut of which is shown on the inside cover), the recipes are amazingly down-to-earth: such homely items as “Beef-steak with onions,” “Salt codfish, fisherman-style,” “Vegetable Soup,” and “Hard Times Pudding” are included. A goodly selection of bread recipes (including “Virginia Corn Bread” and “Indian Bread as prepared at the St. Charles Hotel, New Orleans”) are to be found here as well—something almost never seen in period cookbooks.

The well-thumbed original in my collection has been stabbed at the upper corner near the spine and clearly hung from a cord; during the years I lived as an 1867 “Irish immigrant” in Boston my (reproduction) copy hung at the corner of the fireplace and saw much use. I suppose that in our lawyered-up society it is necessary for me to say that this volume is sold solely as a reproduction; purchasers must decide for themselves whether to use any of its recipes and are responsible for the results. There: take that, Tort-boy. 48 pages, side-sewn with pasted cover.

N.B.: Unlike many “reproduction” paperbound books being sold in the hobby today all of our books are constructed exactly like the originals: they are hand collated and folded, stabbed, and hand-sewn with unbleached dew-retted linen thread matching the original in weight and color; a separate cover is pasted around the book if present in the original and then the whole is trimmed. The process is extremely labor-intensive but the result is truly a reproduction of the original.