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Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald

WELCOME

 

 

What did 19th century New Englanders eat . . . and what did they want to eat? You can find out in an essay we wrote for middle schoolers, teachers, and parents. Click the Lyddie link below our photo on this page.    

 

And if your appetite is now whetted for 19th century food, why not try your hand at baking some Ginger Nuts? They're not difficult to make, and they are so good! The link to the recipe on our blog is also below our photo.

 

Those tasty Ginger Nuts come from The Practical Cook Book by "Mrs. Bliss of Boston." Intrigued by Mrs. Bliss and two other talented culinary writers of the mid-19th century, we decided to find out more about their lives and cookbooks. The result is two articles, the first of which, "A Book of One's Own: New Light on Three New England Cookbook Authors," was published in the Spring 2025 issue of the renowned British food journal, PPC (Petits Propos Culinaires); the second article will appear in PPC in 2026. 

 

 

Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald’s three books on New England and American food history have been widely acclaimed. Their latest, United Tastes: The Making of the First American Cookbook (University of Massachusetts Press, 2017), has been recognized as a key work of culinary and regional history.

“one of the best researched . . . works written about any American culinary topic”
--Andrew F. Smith
--Editor-in-Chief, Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America

 

“one of the best books about Connecticut history in a generation”
--Walter W. Woodward, Connecticut State Historian
 
"detailed and fascinating"
--Choice
 
"an original contribution to the literature on postrevolutionary culture and society"
--Journal of American History 
 
"Stavely and Fitzgerald have found so many connections, have thought to ask so many of the right questions, have managed to see so much and have packed so much scholarship into this book with so light a touch"
--Petits Propos Culinaire
 
"readers will find themselves eagerly positing which cookbooks they want to give the United Tastes treatment to"
--New England Quarterly
 
"for both seasoned food historians and those unaccustomed to thinking of how politics might inform what comes onto a dinner plate, United Tastes is a refreshing and illuminating read"
--Connecticut History Review
 
Beyond these laudatory reviews, United Tastes is the winner of the BRUCE FRASER AWARD for 2017, from the Association for the Study of Connecticut History (ASCH).
 
"United Tastes is lively and erudite in equal measure, and a
particularly valuable contribution to the literature of Connecticut history"
--award citation, Connecticut History Review


An earlier book by Stavely and Fitzgerald, Northern Hospitality: Cooking by the Book in New England (University of Massachusetts Press, 2011), was called

“an excellent and original attempt to go deep into the detail of New England’s cooking heritage”
--Times Literary Supplement

 

“[an] unexpected gem in the ocean of works on food”
--Library Journal

and

“nothing less than a meditation on the evolving New England mind through the prism of its foodways”
--British Food in America


Stavely and Fitzgerald made their debut with America’s Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking (University of North Carolina Press, 2004). This was praised as

“[a] careful, scholarly account [that] emphasizes social change and its influence on gastronomy”
--Times Literary Supplement

Another reviewer commented that

“to read this book as a sort of dictionary of New England foods is a joyful experience”
--H-Net


America’s Founding Food has been deemed a “classic tome” (Choice) and was awarded a 2005 Best of the Best from University Presses selection by the American Association of University Presses.

Stavely and Fitzgerald have also contributed to the Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery and The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets.

They have written for and been interviewed by many media outlets, including the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, the Providence Journal, the Baltimore Sun, Slate, and Yankee Magazine. The have spoken at Plimoth Plantation, the Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island historical societies, and a great many local historical societies, libraries, museums, and interest groups throughout the Northeast.

They live in Jamestown, Rhode Island.

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