Ledbetter Lore
In several books on the subject of name origins, Ledbetter is explained as a trade name applied to those who made pewter vessels for household use. Mr. James E. Ames records that the old name used to be Lebete. In France, where Dr. Hamilton (President of the Tufts University) studied the records for us, La Lebete (The Beast) was the common spelling. The beast was the emblem born on the family shields in the days of the clans.
The name degenerated over the years to Le Lebete, or De Lebete and over the next century to Le Ledbetter. The prefixitive Le was dropped over the next hundred years and Leadbetter became popular around 1530. Around 1668 the southern states dropped the A and adopted the common Ledbetter. I, T.J. “Mack” McDougal, have personally searched our Ledbetter line and have been very lucky to have a continuous line all the way back to William Ledbetter, who was born in Borfolk, England. During this timeframe the aristocrats still ruled the lands of Eurpoe and the isles to the East.
The aristocrat, Mari Antoinette, supposedly made the utterance, “Let them eat cake,” around 1789. She was talking about the poor of France who couldn’t afford to buy bread. The word “cake” did not refer to the familiar dessert item, which the French call “gateau”. The operative term was brioche, a flour and water paste that was caked onto the bakers pans. At the end of the day the bakers would scrape the leavings from the pans and set them outside the door for the beggars. So, Marie was giving flippant advice… If her subjects can”t afford bread, let them eat the poor man’s cake.
You can just imagine what a comment like this would do to a Ledbetter, which (I’m sure) there was a few hundred in the crowd. It drove them wild with anger and they stormed the Bastille and tooke over the city, and the French Revolution was begun. The comment was so angering to the Ledbetters that down through the ages they learned to cook so well they started putting cookbooks together and continue the practice to this very day. Hence, this collection of fine Ledbetter recipes is being offered for your noble family.