A Yardley woman brings savory meals with a side order of American history to households with her Gilded Age cookbook, which takes kitchens and cooks back into the extravagant time period.
The Gilded Age, a phrase minted by Mark Twain, was the time between the Reconstruction Era and the Progressive Era between the 1870s and 1900.
It’s a time period that still fascinates and perplexes many due to the extreme prodigality of some households, especially when it came to their dinner parties. Some of the era’s biggest fans today are foodies.
“Lots of things were invented that we take for granted,” said Becky Libourel Diamond, a writer-historian, researcher and author of “The Gilded Age Cookbook.”
Diamond previously wrote “Mrs. Goodfellow: The Story of America’s Cooking School” and “The Thousand Dollar Dinner.”
“Doing all that research led me to recreating these famous recipes,” Diamond said while talking about the investigation for her previous books. “I had all these recipes on my blog and then I started getting involved with historic sites and they would give me their recipes. I had a lot of them (recipes) already and that’s what gave me the idea of ‘Why not put it in a cookbook and add some more?’”
Diamond blogs about food for the historic Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion, the only authentically restored Victorian house museum in Philadelphia.
Many of the photographs for featured recipes in Diamond’s cookbook were created in the mansion’s attractive kitchen and dining room. including the sweet potato croquettes or deviled spaghetti.
Reading is also a huge part of Diamond’s diligent research.
“It’s kinda like a treasure map that I like to follow,” she jokes.
She’s taken information from historic manuscript cookbooks, old newspaper articles, and even her grandmother’s recipe collections.
“That’s my favorite part,” Diamond said. “I love doing historical research. I tried to include as much history as I could. To let people know about a theme in the chapter, or how a dish was important then and how it still is now.”
“The Gilded Age Cookbook” has five chapters — Culinary Innovations, Outdoor Eats, Dining Out, By Invitation Only and the Holidays.
Along with numerous delicious meals, each chapter gives the chef a perspective into the past, detailing fundamental historical events or the factors that shaped the times — like the role of railways in dining in Chapter One.
“When you do a cookbook you have to do more in the recipes, making sure you’re being authentic so people can make it today,” Diamond said. “You can’t just take a recipe from the nineteenth century. Some of the ingredients are different and the measurements.”
A recipe that may have called for 10 eggs back then, does not need 10 now since eggs are significantly bigger.
Readers can experience the change people went through in the 19th century while flipping through the pages and seeing the growth of inventions and modern ingredients used in recipes — like the innovation and use of powder gelatin.
Throughout her book, Diamond points out the Gilded Age’s corruption and the social issues of the day.
“It was called the Gilded Age because it was gilded and there was a layer of corruption and extreme poverty under the surface.”
Not shying away from the ugly parts of her research, Diamond has already been inspired and determined to highlight overlooked figures from the period — like the women — for her next project.
Through her research, she found that female entrepreneurs in New York opened up a series of tea rooms for women to gather, get a bite or a drink or be a place to rest while shopping or running errands on Fifth Avenue. She wants to focus on the fact that “women had the idea” and they were the ones who carried it out during the time.
“The Gilded Age Cookbook” is available for sale on Amazon, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Books-A-Million, Bookshop.org, Globe Pequot, Hudson Booksellers, Walmart, Target or IndieBound.
It can also be found at Newtown Bookshop, Doylestown Bookshop, Commonplace Reader (Yardley) and Farley’s (New Hope).
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