Those interested in scratch cooking, farm-to-table experiences, and sustainability find that older cookbooks are wonderful. Unfortunately, not all of them are easy to use. Annie Dennis, however, was highly organized and gave details to help with recipe success. This facsimile reprint of the earliest known edition of Annie Dennis' Cook Book , which later evolved into The New Annie Dennis Cook Book , allows reader to explore the author's work from the early days of her career. Unlike later editions, it gives information about where the recipes originated, telling us more about kitchens and dining tables in the nineteenth century South. This reprint includes modern additions such as a list of ingredients to help us picture the late 1800s southern pantry, a timeline of the author's life, and a recipe contributor name index. This work includes 355 pages with over 900 recipes. The first section of the book is a gold mine for those interested in preserving. Gardeners, foragers, and farmer's market enthusiasts will find organized recipes for handling a large variety of produce. Later sections cover recipes for every meal of the day and every eating occasion of the year. Dennis covers the southern classics such as biscuits, fried chicken, macaroni n' cheese, and coconut cake. There are also recipes for dishes our southern ancestors may have found familiar but that recent generations have forgotten such as Charlotte Russe, Syllabub, and Mock Turtle Soup. For those wanting to make unprocessed versions of food we often purchase today, there are instructions for making items such as yeast, crackers, mayonnaise, and more. Georgia's Annie E. Dennis (1856-1920) lived in Talbotton, Atlanta, and Macon. As a home-based cooking expert, she amassed thousands of dollars in prize money at agricultural fairs and won fame far beyond her kitchen. Please note that because this is a facsimile copy, it retains the original book's defects such as occasional smudges and pages with lighter ink. The pages are light gray in color due to the age of the original, which may result in difficult viewing contrast for some readers.