Manuscript Location

Texas Woman's University Denton, Blagg-Huey Library

Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

ca. 1850s-1935

Description

This English recipe book of approximately 130 pages is compiled in bound volume six inches tall, with a metal clasp. The inside front cover bears a heavily inked inscription: "Mrs. E. A. Foord. Receipt Book." The top of the first page is stamped, in heavy black ink, "The Beeches, Winchester," which appears to refer to a region within or near to the English city of Winchester, located in Hampshire County, about sixty miles southwest of London. But what, if anything, Mrs. Foord had to do with the book, other than perhaps owning it at some point, and whether any part of the book was compiled in the vicinity of Winchester, is unclear. Based on images of the book supplied to Manuscript Cookbooks Survey by the library, the book is written in a number of different hands and contains recipes spanning the mid-nineteenth century into the the 1930s. It also contains many pasted-in recipes clipped from newspapers, magazines, and other printed sources, these likewise of widely varying dates. One of the handwritten culinary recipes, for a horseradish sauce probably served with fish, calls for "Swiss milk," the original English name for sweetened, condensed milk, which was first marketed in Britain around 1866. In addition to recipes for food and drink, the book contains medical and practical household recipes.