New Gilded Age Christmas Cookbook Whisks Readers Back in Time

Librarian Becky Libourel Diamond highlights historic menus and recipes updated for modern kitchens in her latest work

Rutgers librarian and food writer Becky Libourel Diamond is bringing back sugar plums from beloved holiday stories while highlighting other more familiar favorites in the Gilded Age Christmas Cookbook: Cookies and Treats from America's Golden Era.

This is Diamond's second cookbook focusing on recipes from the Gilded Age, the period from approximately 1870-1900 that has become known for its rapid innovation, economic growth and stark inequality.

Diamond features 38 recipes collected from the era's newspapers, magazines, and cookbooks and a few passed down from her family, such as scotch shortbread, raisin penuche and soft molasses cookies.

She talked to Rutgers Today about the inspiration behind her newest cookbook, which melds stories of celebrities from then, including the Vanderbilts and Astors, with historic menus and recipes updated for modern kitchens.

Why do you continue to explore this period?

So much of our history can be learned through food, and it's my goal to both educate and entertain readers through my books. The Gilded Age particularly fascinating to me because it was a time of explosive innovation and technology, including within the food industry and inside American kitchens. The chemical leavenings like baking powder and soda, the rotary eggbeater, canned goods, better refrigeration and improvements in chocolate processing were all introduced then.

Why did you decide to focus on holiday recipes?

I wanted to expand upon my Gilded Age culinary research, highlighting the many holiday recipes and traditions that become mainstream during that era. It was an idea that had been brewing for a number of years-ever since I started to focus on the 19th century as a timeframe for historic food. Just like the previous book, I have combined history with recipes from the era, which have all been updated for today's kitchens, so they are all accessible to modern cooks. Recipe headers and sidebars provide insight about the origins of holiday foods and celebrations. I actually would like to do a "trilogy," with the final book on Gilded Age teas and parties.

Are there many recipes or traditions that people will recognize?

In doing the research for the book, I was thrilled to discover that the Gilded Age was the timeframe when Christmas was really evolving into how we celebrate it today, with the idea of gift giving, Santa Claus, the Christmas tree, Christmas cards, Hanukkah celebrations, all becoming mainstream. People from countries all over the world brought their various customs with them to America. As a result, Christmas celebration in the United States ended up being a mix of different traditions from several nations. This included baking lots of holiday treats like the gingerbread (one of the earliest Christmas cookies). Today, gingerbread men or spice cookies are still often associated with Christmas. There are also butter and sugar cookies that will look familiar such as shortbread and frosted Christmas cookies, and recipes people may have heard of but might not know how to make such as sugar plums and plum pudding.

Are there some ingredients that were common but fell out of favor that you think could become popular again?

Many of the recipes use more spices, and perhaps some not commonly associated with baked goods today, such as caraway, cardamom, nutmeg, mace, allspice, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and even red pepper. This was common among the various spice cookies at the time, which were traditional Christmas treats brought to America by European immigrants. Rosewater, lemon essence and orange flower water -- sometimes called orange blossom water -- were also used quite a bit and are included in a few of my recipes. They add a delightful delicate layer of flavor, especially when paired with spices like cinnamon or nutmeg, and I encourage folks to try them. They can be found online or in the international section of supermarkets. Citron was another common ingredient in many Gilded Age Christmas desserts and is included in a few recipes in the cookbook. Dried fruit and nuts were another typical addition to holiday recipes and form the backbone of many treats popular at the time, including sugar plums and plum pudding.

What is your favorite recipe in the cookbook? What do you want people to take away from reading it?

I love the ginger ice cream; ginger just evokes Christmas for me. Ice cream was becoming more available due to improvements in refrigeration and the invention of the ice cream maker for home use. My other favorite recipe is chocolate wine. At the beginning of the Gilded Age, chocolate was still mostly consumed as a drinking beverage and warming it with some sherry, or other fortified wine, sugar and a little cornstarch to thicken is a delicious, festive drink. It is also fantastic over ice cream! The Gilded Age Christmas Cookbook bridges the past and present, bringing back sugar plums and other confections not typically found in modern cookbooks, while revisiting some beloved favorites. Whisking readers back in time to this fanciful era, I hope the treats will delight the inner child in everyone.