Description
This volume of 84 pages is inscribed "Mary Statham Her Book September 22d A.D. 1724" beneath its proud, lengthy title. The book is written in a single neat hand, presumably that of Mary Statham. It includes a complete table of contents at the end. The upper portion of the inside front cover of the notebook is stamped in red with a large coat of arms, partially trimmed away, which bears the legend "Super Fine."
Despite the title's promise of "physic," the book's recipes primarily focus on foods, secondarily on fruit and plant wines, for which there are about a dozen recipes. The culinary recipes are fairly evenly split between savory and sweet. Among the savory dishes outlined are soups, beef and mutton steaks, mutton roasted with oysters, meat pies, kidney pudding, calf's head hash, fricassees, Scotch collops, potted and collared meats, pickled vegetables, fish dishes (particularly on pages 58-60), sauces for meat, fowl, and fish, and cheeses. There are also a number of puddings, which were served in the first course of dinner, with the principal roasts, at the time this book was written. Among the recipes for sweets are dessert creams (including at least three recipes for lemon cream, one titled "the king's"), biskets and little cakes, large cakes, preserved fruits, and confections (including at least two recipes for "liquorice cakes").
There are several recipes of particular interest. In the recipe "To make a cake" (page 2), a cake hoop is referred to as a "garth." (The
Dorothy Stone manuscript at the Folger Shakespeare Library, which is roughly contemporaneous with this recipe book, also uses the term.) "Quaking pudding" and "white pot" are outlined as boiled and baked variations on the same basic dish in a recipe on page 3. The raisin wine called "Medear" (page 12) appears to be an attempt at homemade Madeira. On page 50, there is a recipe for the fine white bread called "manchet," which is often called for in recipes but seldom accorded a recipe treatment of its own (perhaps because it was generally bought at bakeries). A very unusual recipe for making rennet from calves' stomachs (to curdle milk for cheese) appears on page 53. The book includes recipes for two dishes considered obligatory for the first course of Christmas dinner in the early eighteenth century: mince pies (page 22) and plumb broth (page 23).
