Abby Fisher, sometimes spelled as Abbie Fisher (c. 1831 – 1915) was an American former slave from South Carolina who earned her living as a pickle manufacturer in San Francisco and published the second known cookbook by a Black woman in the United States, after Malinda Russell's Domestic Cook Book: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen (1866).
[citation needed] The 1880 Census in San Francisco notes that she was 48 years old during that period, corroborating an 1830 or 1831 birthday.
[5] She made a big impression with high society in San Francisco and was asked to publish a book based on her experiences with Southern cooking.
She noted in the "Preface and Apology" of her book that she entrusted the dictation of her cookbook to her friends, including several of San Francisco's elite.
[7] After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, references to Abby Fisher and her cookbook all but disappeared before a copy of the book resurfaced again at a Sotheby's auction in New York City in 1984.