In a Shaker Cooking

Embodying the best of Anglo-American food, Shaker cooking is compatible with currently fashionable attitudes to food in its celebration of wholesome, honest ingredients, simply prepared but also visually appealing. Shaker kitchens were light, airy, well-designed work rooms with white walls and red-stained work surfaces in which the Shakers were as creative with their recipes as with the kitchen articles they invented, from stoves, to apple corers and broth skimmers. The Shaker communities, which flourished in America from the end of the 18th century until the early 1900s, depended entirely on seasonal and home-produced ingredients. Shaker food was always nourishing and far from austere. Herbs and spices were liberally used and ingredients were always of the highest quality. This book contains a collection of 100 recipes, organized in generic chapters from breads and baking to desserts and preserves. The introduction examines relevant aspects of Shaker lifestyle, including fruit, vegetable and nut-growing, herb-planting and bee-keeping; Shaker eating habits, kitchens and equipment, and key ingredients.