Gourmet's Guide to New Orleans.
New Orleans: Scott & Jones, Publishers; American Printing Co., Ltd., 1937.
Octavo (23.5 x 15.5 cm.), ix, 108, [4] pages. Table of contents. ~ Stated fourth edition (early within the sequence of editions bearing the names of both authors). An attractive and comprehensive anthology, well-known since its first edition of 1933 (subsequent editions would appear under the name of Jones as sole author, after the death of Scott in 1957). With more than six hundred fifty recipes, the majority attributed; including: Mint Julep Beauregard, New Orleans Cocktail (with aromatic bitters and absinthe), Liqueur de Mérise (with two cups of mashed cherry seeds per gallon of wild cherries), Café Brûlot (three versions), Celery Farci, Mushroom Savoury, Brandied Grapes, Gumbo Z’Herbes, Crawfish Bisque, Oyster Soup Lafayette, Almond Soup, Crab St. Jacques, Shrimp Piquante, Courtbouillon (three versions), Kedgeree, Eggs and Cheese à la Creole, Jambalaya (three versions), Chicken Acadien, Roast Pheasant with Cress, Quail with Truffles, Mutton with Cabbage, Curried Kidneys, Kush-Kush, Stuffed Baked Ham, Asparagus Mousse, Red Beans Louisiana Style, Bananas in (Biscuit) Jackets, Candied Cushaw, Creole Stuffed Eggplant, Grujean (Hominy) Creole, Ground Artichoke Mousse, Carrot Pudding, Crême Brulée (i.e., crème brûlée), Tart à l’Apricot, Cocoanut and Plantains, Orange Pie, Watermelon Ice. ~ The short preface supplied by Dorothy Dix, perhaps the most widely read syndicated advice columnist of the era and famously resident at The Times-Picayune, correctly steers readers away from any notion that the Gourmet’s Guide to New Orleans may be some sort of tourist or restaurant companion. The names of local celebrity restaurateurs attach to a few recipes here and there, but the word “guide” in the title has mostly to do with what the people of New Orleans like to eat, and very little to do with where they eat it. A local celebrity herself by the 1930s, the journalist, playwright, actress, and civic reformer Natalie Vivian Scott (1890-1957) had also invited contributions from literary figures living in the city as well as from war correspondents and military personnel with whom she had worked as an administrator in the Red Cross during World War I. Thus Roy Alciatore (the grandson of Antoine) and Conrad Kolb are represented, and as well the writers Helen Pitkin Schertz, Roark Bradford, Stanley Arthur, and Frances Parkinson Keyes. ~ It may have been through military connections that Scott met Caroline Elizabeth Merrick Jones (1877-1973), a native of Pointe Coupée Parish, near Baton Rouge, but by this time long resident in New Orleans. She was the widow of a physician, Hamilton Polk Jones, who had worked with the Red Cross under combat conditions. The Merrick family had long held a high profile, boasting a lineage traceable to the Revolutionary Era. Jones occupied herself in later years not only with new editions of the Gourmet’s Guide but also with restoring her family’s historic home (now known as the Adam-Jones House), which survives still in the Garden District, having received landmark designation by the New Orleans Landmark Commission in 1995. ~ Small dampstain to upper right corner of final leaves; otherwise internally clean and sound. Publisher’s stiff paper wrappers, decorated in brown and buff, with light soiling and edgewear. Still, near very good. Free front endpaper bears the seller's stamp of the Orleans Gift Shop on Royal Street. [OCLC locates ten copies of the fourth edition (and similar numbers of various other editions); Brown acknowledges the evident first (1171) and seventh (1178) editions; Uhler 312; New Orleans Culinary History Group, pages 121-122 (with incorrect information regarding contents of the editions); not in Cagle].
Price: $75.00