From: firstinitiallastname@texas.net   
      
   Cliff D. Weller wrote:   
      
   > I will venture to guess that there were two book   
   > that were considered essential to most MARRIED   
   > households:   
   >   
   > A Bible   
   > A cookbook   
      
   I'm not so sure about the cookbook. They weren't common as today. And,   
   many were rather vague, more suggestions and ideas than recipes. Most   
   were published in England. Food preparation was often incorporated in   
   books about household management, in general.  Today's "scientific"   
   cookbooks, with exact instructions, pretty much came along in 1896 when   
   Fannie Farmer wrote hers. I suspect that few women on the frontier would   
   have much use for one. Without today's array of foods and additives,   
   what a woman, raised for marriage and housework, learned from mother   
   would have covered the ground well.   
      
      
   --   
                          Gerald Clough   
       "Nothing has any value, unless you know you can give it up."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)