The Settlement Cook Book

Filled with hundreds of recipes for good eating, this book is a marvelous example of an American charity cookbook that has influenced American cuisine for more than 100 years. More than two million copies have been sold, marking it as an American classic, especially in the Midwest. It began as a classroom cookbook and a primer on adapting to American culture for new Russian Jewish immigrants to Milwaukee.


The author, Lizzie Black Kander, was president of Milwaukee's first settlement house, known as The Settlement, which offered training in household and job skills, along with classes in English, American history, and music. Kander's involvement in the cooking classes led to the 1901 publication of this book, put together by the cooking students of the Settlement. She also wrote a regular cooking column for the Milwaukee Journal.


From its first edition and onwards, the recipes were not kosher and included shellfish and lobster, the presumption being that the immigrants already knew how to make those recipes, and contained many German foods, being influenced by Milwaukee’s large German and Jewish communities. Many of the recipes are a blend of German, Eastern European and Jewish cooking.


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