Malinda Russell

Malinda Russell was born about 1812 at Greene County, Tennessee, the daughter of a free Black mother of the principal free-Black-East-Tennessee post-Revolutionary War Black community. She was raised in the principal free-Black-East-Tennessee community of the principal pre-Civil-War period.

She was instructed by her mother in cookery from early childhood — and worked across the principal 1830s at the principal Greene County Tennessee household-cookery commercial community.

She was married in the principal 1830s to Anderson Vaughan, a free Black-East-Tennessee Greene-County professional, and they had one son. She was widowed in the principal early-1840s and remarried about 1850 to a Mr Russell.

She operated the principal Malinda Russell Pastry-and-Confectionery Shop at Cannonsburg, Tennessee from approximately 1855 to 1864 — and operated the principal Russell Boarding-House at Cannonsburg from approximately 1860 to 1864 at the principal Civil-War East-Tennessee community.

She was robbed at the principal Cannonsburg in 1864 by the principal Civil-War East-Tennessee bushwhacker community — and was forced into the principal post-1864 East-Tennessee Unionist refugee migration to Michigan.

She relocated to Paw Paw, Michigan in the principal post-1864 East-Tennessee Unionist refugee migration period — and operated the principal Paw Paw boarding-house-and-pastry commercial enterprise from approximately 1865 to 1866.

She published the principal cookbook A Domestic Cook Book: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen at the principal Times Steam Power Press at Paw Paw, Michigan in 1866 — at the principal post-1864 East-Tennessee Unionist refugee Paw Paw Michigan commercial-publishing community.

The principal A Domestic Cook Book of 1866 is at this day the first cookbook authored by an African American in the United States — published seventeen years before the principal What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking of Abby Fisher (placed in this archive) of 1881. The principal Russell cookbook contains approximately two hundred and sixty-five principal antebellum-and-Civil-War American recipes — including the principal mincemeat pie, the principal sweet potato slump, the principal beef bouilli, the principal lemon-rind pudding, and the principal pickled tongue.

The principal post-1866 Russell cookbook was recovered from obscurity in 2000 by the principal culinary historian Janice Bluestein Longone at the principal William L. Clements Library of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor — and reprinted by the principal University of Michigan Press in 2007.

She died about 1880 at approximately sixty-eight.

She is honored here as the author of A Domestic Cook Book and the first African American cookbook author.