About Susan

My Story

I, Susan McLellan Plaisted, am the Proprietress of Heart to Hearth Cookery, a food history business in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. I offer programs, presentations and demonstrations of 17th century through 19th century Colonial American and European cooking methods and practices, and receipts (recipes) as well as pre-European contact and post-European contact Native American Foodways

My repertoire ranges from down hearth and raised hearth cooking to specialties of chocolate, ice cream, comfit making and more. I conduct hands-on workshops and classes at the hearth at Bolton Mansion in Levittown, Pennsylvania and have taught at many historic sites and museums in the Delaware Valley region and beyond. With my now vast and diverse historic foodways experiences, I offer many power point presentations and lectures.

With my research having spanned the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Mexico, I have amassed an amazing inventory of receipts, techniques, and equipment to correctly interpret and demonstrate Scottish, English, Dutch, Pennsylvania German, Swedish, and Native American foodway practices from many periods of history.


As the Coordinator of the third Sunday foodways programs at Pennsbury Manor, the recreated 1680’s home of Pennsylvania’s founder, William Penn, I direct a skilled team of foodways volunteers in the accurate presentation of 17th century food, ranging from cheesemaking to the sugared delicasies of the banquetting table.

I am a founding member, Past President, Newsletter editor, and now Member Emeritus of the Historic Foodways Society of the Delaware Valley, a member of the Culinary Historians of New York, Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor Michigan, the Association of Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums and the International Association of Culinary Professionals.