author
Elizabeth E. (Elizabeth Ellicott) Lea
1793–1858
A 19th-century American cookbook writer, she is best known for turning practical household knowledge into one of the enduring classics of early American domestic writing. Her work preserves Quaker cooking traditions along with clear, useful advice for everyday life.
1 Audiobook
Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers
by Elizabeth E. (Elizabeth Ellicott) Lea
About the author
Elizabeth Ellicott Lea was an American author born in 1793 and remembered for Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers. Her name is closely associated with Maryland and with Quaker domestic traditions, and later editions and studies of her work helped keep her reputation alive well after her death in 1858.
Lea wrote from experience rather than display. In the opening of Domestic Cookery, she explains that she had been embarrassed by her own early lack of practical household knowledge and wanted to gather the kind of reliable guidance that ordinary households actually needed. That plainspoken purpose gives her writing much of its lasting charm.
Today, she is valued not only as a cookbook author but also as a recorder of everyday American foodways. Modern reprints such as A Quaker Woman's Cookbook have introduced new readers to her recipes, household advice, and the world of 19th-century home life.