Which African American chef published Good Things to Eat in 1911?

Rufus Estes published Good Things to Eat in 1911.

Rufus Estes was an African American chef and cookbook author who was born into slavery in Tennessee in 1857. After emancipation, he built a professional career that included work as a chef for Pullman railroad dining cars and private households. His cookbook, Good Things to Eat, was published in 1911.

The book contains recipes for soups, meats, vegetables, breads, desserts, and other household dishes. It is significant not only as a cooking manual but also as an early cookbook published by an African American chef. Estes’s career illustrates the professional culinary expertise developed by Black cooks during and after the nineteenth century.

Estes is sometimes overlooked in discussions of American cookbook history because later works became more commercially prominent. His book nevertheless provides a valuable record of early twentieth-century domestic and professional cooking practices.