Quote:The oldest published cookbook by a Black American woman — that we know of is out in a brand new edition this February.

Malinda Russell wrote A Domestic Cookbook: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen in 1866. We know sadly little about her, says Rafia Zafar, a retired professor at Washington University in St Louis, Mo., who contributed a foreword to the new edition.

"She's widowed early. She has a handicapped child. She starts her own business. She has a pastry shop," Zafar says.

Russell's shop may explain why you can find at least a hundred recipes for sweets in A Domestic Cookbook. The desserts are old-fashioned: allspice cake, French lady cake, lemon puffs, boiled berry pudding. But they still sound delicious. Her cookbook also includes a number of savory recipes, recipes for shampoo and cologne – and remedies for toothaches, corns, even dropsy (an archaic term for swelling and edema.)