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Lettice Bryan

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Lettice Pierce Bryan
Born
Lettice Pierce

1805 (1805)
Kentucky, U.S.
Died1877 (aged 71–72)
Macoupin County, Illinois, U.S.
Resting placeCave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
Spouse
Edmond Bryan
​
​
(m. 1823; died 1863)​
Children14

Lettice Pierce Bryan (1805–1877) was an American writer, who wrote The Kentucky Housewife, a cookbook originally published in 1839.[1][2][3]

Life

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The Kentucky Housewife title page

Lettice Pierce was born in central Kentucky, probably near Danville, to James A. Pierce and Elizabeth Crow Pierce, one of three children. In 1823, she married Virginia-born Edmond Bryan. When Bryan was writing her cookbook, she lived in Monticello, Kentucky; her husband was studying at the Medical College of Ohio and the couple had nine young children.[4][5] After the cookbook was published, the family moved twice - to Washington County and then to Grayson County, Kentucky. Bryan had 14 children.[5]

Bryan died at age 72, in 1877, in Macoupin County, Illinois, at the home of her son-in-law C. F. Burnett. She is buried at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.[6] Her husband pre-deceased her, dying in 1863.[7]

The Kentucky Housewife

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Bryan published The Kentucky Housewife, said to be Kentucky's first cookbook, in 1839. Anthropology professor John van Willigen described the recipes as being "about meat slaughtered at home and what was there on the farm".[8] The book contains 1,300 recipes: Florence Fabricant of The New York Times described it as a "hefty tome. She compared it in style to Mary Randolph's 1824 The Virginia Housewife[9] but noted differences in their versions of pumpkin pie. While both included brandy, Randolph used butter and a lattice top, with Bryan's pie having a dusting of grated sugar.[10]

In a paper on plantation cookbooks, Kathryn Matheny wrote that Bryan did not give detailed procedures in her recipes, this being the prevailing style for cookbooks of the era.[11] Food historian Stephen Schmidt described in a 2001 Yankee Magazine article a traditional election cake weighing as much as 90 pounds (41 kg), noting that Bryan and her contemporaries Lydia Maria Child and Eliza Leslie offered recipes for 5–7-pound (2.3–3.2 kg) versions.[12] A recipe for mutton casserole was included, although casseroles were not well known in southern cooking at the time.[13]

References

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  1. ^ Scott, Elizabeth M. (1997). ""A Little Gravy in the Dish and Onions in a Tea Cup": What Cookbooks Reveal About Material Culture". International Journal of Historical Archaeology. 1 (2): 131–155. doi:10.1023/A:1027307906388. S2CID 141441139.
  2. ^ Hatchett, Judith (2009). ""And not a wife only": advice and receipts from The Kentucky Housewife". Border States (17): 35 ff.
  3. ^ Kraig, Bruce (2013). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America. Vol. 1. OUP USA. pp. 251 et al. ISBN 9780199734962.
  4. ^ 1840 U.S. Census, Monticello, Wayne, Kentucky; Roll: 126; Page: 182. Ancestry.com.
  5. ^ a b Resor, C. W. (July 18, 2019). "Mrs. Bryan's "Kentucky Housewife": Managing a Household in the 1830s". Primary Source Bazaar.
  6. ^ Portrait and Biographical Album of Henry County, Illinois. Chicago: Biographical Publishing Co. 1885. pp. 228–229.
  7. ^ 1850, 1860 U. S. Census, Ancestry.com.
  8. ^ Guadagni, Rachael (April 17, 2014). "The Way to Kentucky's Heart". kentuckymonthly.com. Retrieved May 3, 2024.
  9. ^ Fabricant, Florence (June 12, 1991). "Food Notes". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 3, 2024.
  10. ^ Fabricant, Florence (November 17, 1993). "Pity the Part-Time Eaters Of Pumpkin". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 3, 2024.
  11. ^ Matheny, Kathryn (Spring–Summer 2021). "We All Cook by Ear: Plantation Cookbooks and the Paradox of the Written Recipe". Southern Studies. 28 (1): 55 – via Ebasco.
  12. ^ Schmidt, Stephen (May 2001). "Why Cake? Why Hartford?". Yankee. Vol. 65, no. 4. pp. 22–25. ISSN 0044-0191.
  13. ^ Tipton, Carrie Allen (November 25, 2013). "The Casserole: A Good Company Dish". Deep South Magazine. Retrieved May 3, 2024.
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