This 342-page cookbook is compiled in an unusually wide “landscape-style” notebook (4 1/2 by 9 inches) that is missing its covers. It is thought to have been kept by the Hopkins family, in Accomack County, Virginia. In addition to handwritten recipes, which are in several different hands, the book contains pasted-in recipes, some on newspaper clippings and some, it appears, from letters. The book has been dated ca. 1843 by the library, perhaps on the basis of a date attached to a recipe for icing (see below). But one pasted-in newspaper clipping bears the place and date “Baltimore, Aug. 1857” and some of the cakes (Delicate, Soda Sponge, Mahogany) emerged after 1850.
The handwritten recipes include: bread without yeast, Pattent Buns, Laplands, French Rools, Puffs, Jackson Jumbles, Maryland Biscuit, Apple Marmalade, Federal Bread, Wafers, rice waffles, icing [dated Jan 20th 1843], Cream Custard, Peach Dumplings, Rice Dumplings, Macarones, Tavern Biscuit, Boston Gingerbread, Cinnamon Biscuit, German Trifle, Lemon Preserve for tarts, Apples & Rice, Apple Island, peach jam, syrup for preserves, to make candles, Nuns Butter, Molasses Sauce, Corn Bread, rice griddle cakes, Corn Griddle Cakes, meat balls, drawn butter, Bacon Dumplings, Egg Sauce, omlet, Green tomatoes for pies, Spanish fritters, cantalope pickle, cocoa nut candy, stuffed peppers, tomato soup, chow chow, Cold Slaugh, hash made of fowls, Beef Steak Pie, Pork Stew Pie, Bacon Fraise, Calf foot jelly, tomato ketchup, pickled tomatoes, cherries, apples, cucumbers, and oysters.
There are many recipes for cakes, by such names as Selven, Tea, Delicate, Soda Sponge, Texas Cream, Fruit, Ginger Sponge, Cream, Velvet, Pound, Shrewsbury, Savory, Cup, Lady, Black, Corn Meal, Composition, Clover, Almond Sponge, Coconut Pound, Mush Flannel, Corn, Coconut Cheese, Lemon, Butter-Milk, Mahogany, and Puff.
There are also many recipes for puddings: Citron, Cream, Thicken Milk, Common Milk, Butter, Transparent, Orange, Lemon, Coconut, Bread, Irish Potato, Switzerland, Yankey, Family, Pumpkin, Apple, Pound Cake, Boiled Fruit, Mango, French, Smyrna, Cottage, Swiss, and Liny Linds,
Recipes for Blackberry Cordial, Blackberry wine, Peach cordial, Cherry Cordial, and cider are also included, as well as some household and medical recipes, most of these on clippings.
To view the library record, go to the institution homepage, follow the links to the library catalog search page, and enter the library title for this book in the search box.
