“A Simple, Public Cooking” — the Forgotten Bestseller by E.I. Molokhovets

Abstract

E.I. Molokhovets is the author of one of the most popular cookery books of the 2nd half of the 19th — early 20th century “Gift for young housewives”, which went through 29 editions. This book is still being reprinted with the same success among modern readers despite the fact that even during the life of the author, it was subjected to partly fair criticism for some “elitism” of the recipes presented. Not everyone knows nowadays her other, more modest, cooking book “A Simple, Public Cooking”, the first edition of which was published in 1884. This is book in the article. “A Simple, Public Cooking” is a collection of recipes that fully lives up to its title. The recipes for all the dishes presented in the collection are very simple both in terms of the composition of the necessary products and the methods of their preparation, which makes this book relevant for modern culinary lovers. The article provides a detailed comparative analysis of different editions of the collection published during the life of E.I. Molokhovets (in total, six editions were published from 1884 to 1911), and also examines its publishing fate in the Soviet and post-Soviet times.