Elizabeth Corné de Gironcourt ("Eliza") Kane of New York City collected recipes, business cards, and other material in this volume (approximately 82 pages) around the 1840s-1850s. The book includes recipes for foods, particularly baked goods, food storage, and household supplies. Business cards and calling cards are pasted into the volume's endpapers, as is the bookplate of Eliza's grandson, Grenville Kane.
Pages 1-64 primarily contain handwritten recipes attributed to various women, including Eliza C. Kane. The recipes outline waffles, cakes, and puddings; beverages, including bitters; preserved foods such as pickled walnuts, brandied peaches, and cured beef; jellies; and catsups. There is a reference to "Madeira nuts," a period name for common (English) walnuts. There are two recipes for "Indian cakes" and "Indian baked pudding." Instructions for dressing a calf's head, making cologne, and mixing a "southern cough remedy" are also included. The recipes are written in several hands; one is dated June 3, 1845. Some pages have addresses for businesses and private residences.
Additional items are pinned or pasted into the volume, including a gas company circular, a manuscript note to Eliza C. Kane (with a recipe), and printed recipes. One recipe is pasted over a handwritten copy of the title page from William Lee's The Excellent Properties of Brandy and Salt as an Efficacious Medicine in Several Dangerous Diseases Incident to Mankind (1840). In 1854, the Croton Aqueduct Department fined Eliza C. Kane for a violation of its rules related to street washing; the receipt for her subsequent payment is pasted into the volume.
Elizabeth Corné de Gironcourt ("Eliza") was widowed before the 1840s and lived at 94 Tenth Street, New York City, in the early 1850s. She and her husband, Oliver G. Kane, had at least one son, Pierre (b. 1828). Pierre's children included Grenville Kane (b. 1854), who later owned his grandmother's recipe book.
The catalog record contains a link to an expansive finding aid.
