Whether you are an advanced chef in the kitchen or a beginner just starting out, you can always use more inspiration and recipes. The Sunshine State Digital Network repository is an excellent place to go to find new inspiration. The recipes in the repository range from Spanish traditional food to stereotypical mid-century jello mold salads.
The Sunshine State Digital Network repository is an excellent resource for planning your next dinner party. Here are the recipes I would choose for hosting a multiple course dinner party.
To start the night off on the right foot, I found an excellent drink recipe. Here is a recipe for an Original Daiquiri created by Jennings Cox. The ingredients of this 6 serving recipe include 6 lemons, 6 teaspoons of sugar, 6 cups of Bacardi Rum, 2 cups of mineral water, and ice. This recipe was not provided in a cook book in the repository, but instead was alone. Make sure while you search the repository to not skip over the non-published recipes!
Now that the drinks have been served, it is time to move on to the first portion of the night. Most of the books within the repository do not break up into segments of the meal as modern day cook books do. Most books within the repository are broken up into ingredient type. That being said, I chose a soup out of the book “The American practical cookery-book, or, Housekeeping made easy, pleasant, and economical in all its departments.” The soup I chose was the lobster soup, but there are plenty of other soup options within that cook book.
The main course of any dinner party is important. The guests await it, most hosts spend much time preparing it, and it is the main dish. There are an abundance of options in the repository for a main dish, however the one I would serve if I hosted a dinner party comes from the book, “The frugal housekeeper’s kitchen companion: or, Guide to economical cookery : … dedicated to those American housewives who are not ashamed of economy.” I would choose to create a stewed beef and I believe the recipe down below is a very traditional and savory version of that.
The only way to end any dinner party is to finish off the night with a dessert. For my dessert at my fake dinner party, I would choose to make what the book“All about cookery: a collection of practical recipes arranged in alphabetical order” calls “common cake.” This book has many different cake and pudding recipes, but this is the most standard by modern standards.
Overall, there is an abundance of options you can choose from while planning a dinner party using only cook books from the repository. Most of the books I used were from the late 1800’s, however there are my more books from a more recent time period. I urge you to explore the books listed above to find more recipes than the few included in this article because you will find many more delicious recipes to serve yourself and others.
Illuminations 