Mary A. Wilson's Cook Book

Quarto, yellow printed wrappers, 32 pp. A scarce cookbook sold at a Nashville department store and given out as a souvenir at a two week cooking course held at the store by the author, Mary A. Wilson. According to articles in the Tennessean from 1921 and 1922, Wilson was born a Creole in New Orleans, and went on to become personal diet chef to Queen Victoria, conductor of the naval commissary schools during World War I, and head of a cooking school in Philadelphia, purported to be the largest of its kind in the world. The text prints a wide variety of recipes as well as menus, alongside advertisements for the store geared towards women and homemakers. Included are menus for an iron rich diet, a section of "hot weather thirst quenchers," including chop suey and orangeade, a section of honey recipes, and more. Creasing, toning, and discoloration to wrappers, tiny chip to upper corner of front wrapper.