This is the Website for the Malinda Russell recipe project.

Malinda Russell, who had lived up as a free person Virginia and Tennessee was driven out of the South during the period of lawlessness that followed the defeat of the Confederate armies. Malinda Russell had made a living as a cook and baker. At one point she ran an inn. She was frequently told that he should pubish her recipes. She took advantage of her change of circumstance to write and published “A Domestic Cookbook.” The work is heavy on desserts, so should probably be thought of as a pastry cookbook. She drew on the mainstream literature of her time which means that many of her recipes can be traced to the main 18th and 19th century cookbooks that were in print during the 19th-century. This is what one would expect. Cookbook authors publish recipes that are generally familiar. One thing that is unexpected is that quite a few of her recipes are not found in print until ten to twenty year after she published her cookbook in 1866. Unfortunately for her, and for the reputation of her jewel of a book, only one copy of her book survived. The commercial district of Paw Paw Michigan burned while her book was still at the printers! Midwestern towns in this period did not yet have fire departments, so multi-structure conflagrations were common.

This project is open to anyone who wants to join us. The only prerequisite is a love of good food and particularly a love of a good dessert. People with training as culinary historians are needed for the initial work on recipes, and then after that both professional and home bakers are needed to test the recipes.

We are hopeful that over time, Malinda Russell recipes will become of the dessert offerings in restaurants, in community celebrations, and will join other favorite desserts in our own home cooking.

If you are a baker, work in a restaurant, are part of a church group with an active cooking community, or a home baker looking for new ideas from an inspirational baker. Please get in touch with us at [malindarussellrecipes@gmail.com]

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Published by William Rubel

I am an author who writes about traditional food and foodways. My book, The Magic of Fire (2002) is about hearth cooking. I have written an introductory history of bread, Bread, a global history (2011) and am currently writing a history of bread for the University of California Press. Other areas of interest include wild mushrooms, and specifically the treatment of Amanita muscaria in the historic record. I also write about Early Modern British Gardens, and for a more general audience, I write for Mother Earth News on bread, gardening, and more. I have an ongoing research project into the smoke-cured fermented milk of the Kenyan Samburu tribe. I am a co-director of the Samburu Lowlands Research Station, Lengusaka. I am the founding editor (1972) of Stone Soup, the magazine of writing and art by young people.

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