The notebook in which this cookbook is written was originally used by Martin H. Phillips to record instructional material when he taught at Lenox Academy, in Lenox, Massachusetts, in 1838-1839. Catharine Phillips, possibly Martin Phillips’s wife or daughter, later wrote 42 pages of recipes, nearly all culinary, in the notebook, upside down in relation to the school text. At least eleven of the recipes are dated, mostly 1853-1859 but some 1880.
The cookbook contains eighty-seven culinary recipes. They include Oley Cake, Shad Cooked with Cream, Chicken One Way to Cook, A Pretty Dish of Eggs, Still Another Jenny Lind Cake-all good, Railroad Cake, Betsey's and Margaret's gingerbreads, Dough Nuts, Extra Nice Baked Apples, Newbold's Receipt for Ham, Crullers-EM good, Mrs. L's Receipt for Jumbles, Cocoa Nut Cake, and Corn Cake Pokeepsie [Poughkeepsie].
