This 1904 book evokes the sights, smells, and tastes of Kentucky in the 1900s. Most importantly, the book was groundbreaking, over one hundred years ago, in its celebration of the vital role Black women played in building and sustaining the tradition of Southern cooking and Southern hospitality.

"In the most desolate and hopeless of circumstances, blacks caught in the grip of slavery often exhibited uncommon wisdom, beauty, strength and creativity. The kitchen was one place where their imagination and skill could have free rein and full expression, and they often excelled." Recipes will get lost, tampered with, stolen, and in most cases their creators remain unknown, but not in this book. White Southern Mistress Minnie C. Fox was quick to recognize the outstanding recipes created by the black cooks around her and did what most white women would not have done, she compiled them. In this book, you will find over 300 recipes from black cooks and the friends and families of Fox. From breads, to biscuits, soups, hams, fish, oysters, croquettes and so much more. These recipes are not just any recipes, they are the recipes of hundreds of loving mothers and grandmothers, who derived pleasure from the simple act of cooking. And what's more, these recipes can be tried today. The Blue Grass Cook Book is not just any cookbook, it is one that holds recipes and history in its pages, detailing the beginnings of southern hospitality and cuisine.

The category of “charity cookbook” is a favorite in American culinary history. Funds raised by sales of these cookbooks, with recipes donated by women’s groups and church societies, were used to aid a wide variety of local causes and charities. Housekeeping in the Blue Grass belongs in this category—an excellent example of regional cooking styles of the post-Civil War Midwest. Several hundred recipes compiled by the Ladies of the Presbyterian Church in Paris, Kentucky, to raise funds for the Missionary Society include a complete range of dishes from soup to nuts. The introduction notes that the Blue Grass region of Kentucky is “considered the garden-spot of the State. It is celebrated for the fertility of its soil, the beauty of its pastures . . . and last, but not least, for the hospitality of its people and their table luxuries,” which are then richly described in the book. Over forty women who contributed recipes are acknowledged by name at the beginning of the book, and throughout, many of the recipes are attributed to their donors. The book also includes over 40 ads for local commercial establishments that, presumably, contributed funds for publication of the book. This edition of Housekeeping in the Blue Grass by Ladies of the Presbyterian Church, Paris, Kentucky, was reproduced by permission from the volume in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1812 by Isaiah Thomas, a Revolutionary War patriot and successful printer and publisher, the Society is a research library documenting the life of Americans from the colonial era through 1876. The Society collects, preserves, and makes available as complete a record as possible of the printed materials from the early American experience. The cookbook collection includes approximately 1,100 volumes.