Practical Cooking and Dinner Giving

This well-used volume, in its original, gold-decorated publisher's binding, provides the reader with simple rules to cook and present meals. Its preface states: "The aim of this book is to indicate how to serve dishes, and to entertain company at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as to give cooking receipts. Too many receipts are avoided, although quite enough are furnished for any practical cook-book."  Many illustrations (beautiful 19th-century wood engravings) embellish the text and make following the instructions easier; the frontispiece image shows the exact way of setting a table for six, featuring five pieces of silverware and three glasses for each setting.  Born to wealth, author Mary Foote Henderson (1841-1931) was the wife of a United States Senator, active in the cause of women’s suffrage, and a major property-owner in the city of Washington who helped to establish Meridian Hill Park.