Recipes from Audubon's Happy Land West Feliciana (1st Ed.)

This fundraising booklet was created by the Woman's Auxiliary of Grace Episcopal Church in St. Francisville, Louisiana in honor of their most famous guests, ornithologist James Audubon and his wife Lucy Audubon.  The Audubons lived in West Feliciana Parish from 1821 - 1828, where Lucy tirelessly supported James' art ambitions by supporting her family through teaching and governess work for affluent local families.  During those years, Mr. Audubon created more than 60 naturalist bird paintings. These paintings were later engraved and published in his most popular work The Birds of America.

More than a century after the Audubons departed St. Francisville, the Woman's Auxiliary of Grace Episcopal aimed to honor this historical legacy through the publication of their small cookbook. To further solidify the connection to the Audubon Family, the authors state that "Lucy Audubon may herself have used some of these recipes."

Published in the narrative style, the recipes largely cover the traditional foodways of the region and run the gamut from "famous" recipes from long-departed community members (both free and enslaved), plantation cookbooks, and flavor influences of the immigrants who settled in the area.

Important Note:

As with many older Southern cookbooks, this cookbook contains word usage that would have been in common use at the time of publication but is now considered racist and may be offensive and disturbing to many.  We aim to make these older texts available to those who desire to present and preserve these historical artifacts and make them available for folks to evaluate and study racism in a tangible form.