author
Carrie V. Shuman
Best known for compiling a remarkable 1893 cookbook tied to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, this editor helped turn recipes into a record of women's public work and everyday cooking. Her best-known book still offers a vivid window into American food culture at the end of the nineteenth century.
1 Audiobook
Favorite Dishes : a Columbian Autograph Souvenir Cookery Book
by Carrie V. Shuman
About the author
Carrie V. Shuman is known for Favorite Dishes: A Columbian Autograph Souvenir Cookery Book, first published in Chicago in 1893. The book gathers more than three hundred recipes and was explicitly presented as a compilation, with Shuman named as its compiler rather than as the sole author.
The project was connected to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Later descriptions from the University of Illinois Press explain that Shuman approached Bertha Honoré Palmer, president of the Board of Lady Managers, with the idea of creating a charitable cookbook made up of recipes endorsed by the Lady Managers. The book was meant not just as a practical cookbook, but also as a way to help women of limited means raise money to visit the fair.
That purpose gives Shuman's work its lasting interest. Favorite Dishes preserves recipes, signatures, and portraits from women involved with one of the best-known world's fairs of the era, making it valuable as both a cookbook and a small piece of social history. I wasn't able to confirm further personal biographical details about Shuman from reliable sources found here, so this overview focuses on the work that can be clearly documented.