The Spirit of Seventy-Six!

In honor of the 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence, all recipes through July 4, 2026 will be from Centennial and Bicentennial cookbooks and the 1796 first American cookbook. Enjoy this look at the (gastronomic) spirit of ’76 as we head into the sestercentennial!

I’ve also published a Sestercentennial Cookery with recipes and photos.

Mrs. Winslow’s Cocoanut Pie: Cocoanut Pie, from Mrs. Winslow’s Domestic Receipt Book for 1876.; pie; nineteenth century; 1800s; coconut; recipe; America’s Centennial; 1876

This is a wonderfully chewy pie, a lot like a Mounds bar. Just about any pie crust will work with this; I made it last with a ginger cookie-crumb crust, which was a great accompaniment to the chewy coconut.

I suspect that finding this at the end of a meal was a very nice treat in 1876. It’s certainly a very nice treat in 2026!

Drop in again soon for another vintage recipe! I’ll have a different recipe every Sunday afternoon throughout the year. Keep an eye on this page or subscribe to the RSS feed for further details. You can also browse past featured Club recipes as well as some of the vintage promotional cookbooks I’ve used as sources. And I collect many of these recipes in A Traveling Man’s Cookery Book.

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You have to share some of the preparation in the kitchen with friends. — Jacques Pépin (Essential Pépin)