Manuscript Location

Place of Origin

Date of Composition

Description

This English recipe book is inscribed “Mrs Cook Rec. Book,” on the vellum back cover but is written in many hands. It contains 239 culinary and medical recipes on 119 written pages. There is an index at the front that includes entries for the initial recipes but omits many of the later recipes. The initial recipes are written only on the rectos of the leaves; many later recipes appear on both recto and verso. The book is of the eighteenth century, likely early, as a recipe on page 14 is titled "quidney" a seventeenth-century word for "jelly," and there are occasional intrusions of secretary hand (particularly in the character "e"). The book contains many stains and shows much wear in certain areas. Some recipes are recorded multiple times by different hands, such as "to pickle green walnuts like mangoes.”

The culinary and medical recipes are run together. The culinary recipes include cakes, cordials, puddings, pickles, potted and collared foods, hashed calf's head, gooseberry fool, cheese curd fritters, ratafia, and cheese. In addition to medical remedies for consumption, gout, and toothache, there are a great number of recipes addressed to eye complaints, including “for sore eyes,” “For an hot Thume in y^e Eyes,” “For dimness in y^e sight.”