Who wrote Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus, published in 1911?

Rufus Estes wrote Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus, published in 1911.

Rufus Estes was an African American chef who had been born enslaved and later built a professional career in Chicago. His cookbook, Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus, appeared in 1911 and is one of the earliest cookbooks by a formerly enslaved African American chef.

The book contains recipes for meats, vegetables, breads, desserts, and drinks, reflecting both domestic cooking and Estes’s experience as a professional chef. Its title presents the recipes as practical suggestions rather than as a formal culinary theory, but the collection is historically valuable for documenting Black food knowledge in the early twentieth century.

Estes’s cookbook is often discussed alongside Abby Fisher’s 1881 cookbook. Fisher’s book is earlier, while Estes’s work shows how African American culinary authors continued publishing after emancipation and into the era of urban professional cooking.