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.

Irish Potato Pie: Irish Potato Pie, from the ca. 1877 Horsford Cook-Book.; pie; nineteenth century; 1800s; potatoes; recipe

This is the kind of dish I’m looking for in vintage cookbooks: forgotten and amazing. It isn’t surprising that normal potatoes would work in pie; we already have sweet potato pie and pumpkin pie. What is surprising is how wonderful it is. If you think sweet potato pies are too heavy, consider trying this: it’s lighter, fluffier, and seems to me to go better with the spices than sweet potato does.

As for being Irish, I doubt it. As today, there was a tendency in the period to give recipes geographical names based on their ingredients. This contains potato, so it’s named after the Irish.

Also, the Horsford Cook-Book is a baking powder cookbook. There is, obviously, no baking powder in the filling. You’re expected to use baking powder in your pie crust. You have been warned.

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)