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If you think traditional New England cooking is little more than baked beans and clam chowder, think again. In this anthology of almost 400 historic New England recipes from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century, you will be treated to such dishes as wine-soaked bass served with oysters and cranberries, roast shoulder of lamb seasoned with sweet herbs, almond cheesecake infused with rosewater, robust Connecticut brown bread, zesty ginger nuts, and high-peaked White Mountain cake. Beginning with four chapters placing the region's best-known cookbook authors and their works in nuanced historical context, the authors then proceed to offer a ten-chapter cornucopia of culinary temptation. Readers can sample regional offerings grouped into the categories of the liquid one-pot meal, fish, fowl, meat and game, pie, pudding, bread, and cake. Recipes are presented in their original textual forms and are accompanied by commentaries designed to make them more accessible to the modern reader. Each chapter, and each section within each chapter, is also prefaced by a brief introductory essay. From pottage to pie crust, from caudle to calf's head, historic methods and obscure meanings are thoroughly, sometimes humorously, explained. Going beyond reprints of single cookbooks and adaptations of historic recipes, this critical anthology puts the New England cooking tradition on display in all its unexpected and delicious complexity. The book equips readers with all the tools needed for both historical understanding and kitchen adventure. I.