This book is distinguished by its rare combination of historical charm, sophisticated culinary technique, and practical instruction in the art of fine home cooking.

First published in 1889, Catherine Owen’s Choice Cookery is not simply a collection of old-fashioned recipes. It is an ambitious culinary education for the home cook who wants to move beyond ordinary meals and understand how refined dishes are actually constructed.

Originally written as chapters for Harper’s Bazar, the book explores the techniques behind elegant nineteenth-century dining—from foundational sauces and rich stocks to elaborate entrées, cold dishes, delicate desserts, fine cakes, salads, and cheese preparations.

Owen begins where a serious cook should begin: with sauces.

White sauces, brown sauces, cold sauces, reductions, glazes, and their many variations form the foundation for much of the book. Her method is remarkably intelligent: once the cook understands a few fundamental preparations, apparently complicated dishes become combinations of techniques that can be mastered one by one.

Inside this classic cookbook you will discover:

• Classic white, brown, and cold sauces
• Béchamel, Béarnaise, Allemande, Châteaubriand, and other refined sauces
• Rich stocks, gravies, and culinary glazes
• Consommés and elegant soups
• Fish entrées and sophisticated seafood preparations
• Numerous ways of preparing and serving oysters
• Beef, mutton, lamb, poultry, game, and other entrées
• Croquettes, cutlets, rissoles, kromeskies, cigarettes, and patties
• Cold entrées, chaudfroids, galantines, and ballotines
• Cold game pies and elaborate meat preparations
• Decorative garnishes and refined vegetable dishes
• Clear and decorative jellies
• Creams, frozen puddings, and iced puddings
• Ice-creams and water-ices
• Fruit compotes and other elegant sweets
• Fine cakes and dessert sauces
• Salads and cheese dishes

But the greatest value of Choice Cookery lies beyond its recipes.

Owen teaches the reader to recognize the structure of a dish. A sophisticated preparation may be nothing more mysterious than several simple techniques performed exceptionally well and brought together intelligently. Master the sauce, understand the cooking method, respect the ingredients, and the supposedly difficult dish becomes approachable.

This makes the book both a historical treasure and a genuine study in culinary technique.

Owen also offers a fascinating window into nineteenth-century American hospitality. Her pages reveal a world of intimate dinners, elegant entertaining, elaborate cold dishes, fashionable desserts, and the desire to bring restaurant-quality cookery into the private home—without automatically depending upon a professional caterer.

The book is especially rewarding for readers interested in historic cookbooks, vintage recipes, culinary history, traditional sauces, classic desserts, nineteenth-century entertaining, and the evolution of American domestic cuisine.

Some ingredients, measurements, terminology, and cooking practices naturally reflect the period in which the book was written. That historical character is part of its appeal. Modern cooks can approach the recipes as culinary artifacts, adapt them with care, or use Owen’s underlying principles as inspiration for their own kitchens.

Catherine Owen's message remains surprisingly relevant: excellent cooking is less about mystery than mastery.

Choice Cookery invites you into the nineteenth-century kitchen not merely to reproduce its dishes, but to understand the intelligence, patience, precision, and imagination behind them.

A fascinating classic for cooks, collectors, food historians, lovers of vintage recipes, and anyone curious about the sophisticated art of the nineteenth-century table.