New Orleans Cookbook (Lena Richard)

Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. Copyright 1940. Green cloth hardcover. No dust jacket.

Chef, teacher, and entrepreneur Lena Richard brought the cooking of her native New Orleans to a national audience with this groundbreaking collection. Originally self-published in 1939, her cookbook celebrates Creole cuisine through more than 300 recipes. Richard also opened a cooking school for Black students and later hosted her own television cooking show, building a remarkable career at a time when Black women rarely received public recognition for their culinary expertise.

Cloth cover shows light scuffing, small marks, and wear at the corners and spine ends. Handwritten gift inscription to cookbook author Jean Anderson dated 1954 on the front endpaper. Light age toning to interior pages.