I’m reading the book Fever, 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson. It’s one of those books that has an excerpt from some old work at the start of each chapter. So, at the beginning of one chapter appeared this recipe from American Cookbook (The First American Cookbook: A Facsimile of “American Cookery,” 1796, by Amelia Simmons is still available for $5.95, if you can believe it!) is printed.


I was curious about this 1796 “diet”, so I used the Nutrition Calculator from SELF Magazine’s web site. I estimated that the loaf of bread would serve 8 people. One slice of bread contains 468 calories and 5 grams of fat. According to the Weight Watchers Points Calculator, that one slice of bread would be 10 points of your daily total. Yikes!

I compared it with the nutritional label on Wonder Bread. If you use 2 slices for your sandwich, you are consuming 140 calories and 1.5 grams of fat.

I can only guess that the “diet” part comes in the exercise form, when you have to beat the sugar and the eggs together for one hour.