Manuscript Location

Harvard University, Houghton Library

Place of Origin

United States ➔ Massachusetts ➔ Boston

Date of Composition

March-November 1801 and undated

Description

Ruth Haskins Emerson (1768-1853) was born into a prosperous merchant's family. In 1796, she married William Emerson (1769-1811), a prominent Bostonian who served as the Unitarian minister of Boston's First Church and helped to found Boston Athenaeum. The couple had eight children, the fourth of whom was the influential poet, essayist, and Transcendentalist thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson.

In United Tastes, by Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald, Ruth Emerson's book is described as reflecting the cooking of a "decorous, well-to-do, metropolitan young wife," married to a man whose social position required her to stage stylish entertainments. Among the mostly British-style recipes are "Beef Bouilli," "Calves Head Turtle Fashion," Hannah Glasse's "Calves Feet Jelly," and multiple versions of "Plumb Cake," the fanciest cake of the era. The book also contains some medical and household recipes.

This volume is part of the library's Emerson Family Papers: Series II. Compositions by other authors, Subseries A. Manuscripts by authors other than Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is housed in Box 17.