The art of bookbinding

The Wilton Historical Society is offering a bookbinding workshop for kids on July 8 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The recommended ages for this workshop is for kids that are between the ages of six and 12. 

Museum Educator Lola Chen will talking to the kids about the history of making books and learning about how to bind a book. The workshop project will be to make a small book using an easy stitch using linen or flax to bind. The book will be composed of Colonial “receipts” (recipes) that have been used in the Colonial Cookery and Customs for Kids workshops at the Society. Recipes include bannock cakes, pease porridge, pickles, an amulet of green peas, apple tansey, fairy butter, pumpkin bread, cranberry shortbread, New Year’s “cakes”, New England chowder, cheese soufflé with ramps, and pea and watercress Rappahannock.

Did You Know?
American Cookery, by Amelia Simmons, is the first known cookbook written by an American, published in Hartford, Connecticut in 1796. Until then, the cookbooks printed and used in the Thirteen Colonies were British. Its full title is: American Cookery, or the art of dressing viands, fish, poultry, and vegetables, and the best modes of making pastes, puffs, pies, tarts, puddings, custards, and preserves, and all kinds of cakes, from the imperial plum to plain cake: Adapted to this country, and all grades of life.
This book was quite popular and was printed, reprinted and pirated for 30 years after its first appearance. Only four copies of the first edition are known to exist.