Manuscript Location

Smithsonian Libraries, Special Collections

Place of Origin

United States

Date of Composition

likely ca. 1840s or early 1850s

Description

This recipe book is manifestly of New England, likely of Massachusetts or New Hampshire and possibly of both. The inside front cover of this book contains a printed label "From the Misses Henchman East Jaffrey, New Hampshire." The inside back cover is inscribed "Thomas Fisher of Boston."  The "Webster Cake" (image 30) is surely titled after Daniel Webster, who served as a New Hampshire congressman and, later, as a Massachusetts senator. In addition, the book contains a number of recipes particularly identified with Massachusetts, including a number of recipes for cider cake and an unusual recipe for Nahunt Buns (image 44), presumably named for the Massachusetts shore town of Nahunt. 

The book is planned, although there are some lapses in the organization. It begins with two pie recipes (image 3) and then proceeds to breads and cakes (images 4-44), preserves and desserts (images 48-55), puddings (images 62-73), pies and savory dishes (images 83-95), and recipes for medicines, household products, and spirits (images 96-116). The sections are separated by blank pages, on some of which figures have been written in pencil. The book is in a number of different hands, and many of the hands appear to recur throughout the volume, suggesting that the book was a collaborative effort or that it at least  began as one, even if some of the recipes were added later by persons not involved in the original project.

The book contains recipes paraphrased from two cookbooks that were published in the 1820s and in their popular heyday in the 1830s, namely the "Pumpkin or Squash Pie" and "Carrot Pie" that open the book, which are paraphrased from Maria Child's The American Frugal Housewife, and the recipes for "Butter Biscuits" and "Flannel Cakes, or Crumpets," which are paraphrased from Eliza Leslie's Seventy-Five Receipts. If the book was indeed a collaborative project, it was likely begun not much earlier than 1840, for it contains a recipe for "Harrison Cake" (image 24), which debuted during the Harrison's presidential campaign of 1840, as well as recipes for "Gold Cake" and "Silver Cake" (image 33) that are copied from Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book, first published in 1846. Printed instructions for making griddle cakes and breads with cream of tartar and baking soda instead of yeast are pasted in or tipped in at image 80. This notion peaked in the 1850s, suggesting that the book may have been compiled as late as that decade. The pudding sauce outlined on image 72, which is similar to the later "foamy sauce," also bids fair to be of the 1850s.

The book includes an unusual recipe for lemon pie (image 82), which calls for inserting a layer of pastry within the filling and covering the pie with puff paste.