Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

1706

Description

This English recipe book contains 179 written pages, with original pagination. The book is in two parts. The first part is headed "Receipts of Chirurgicall and Phisis . . . Medicines" and extends from pages 1 to 51. The second part is headed "Receipts for Cookery," and extends from pages 52 to 179. The book is in a single neat, handsome hand through page 153, then in several additional hands to the end, one of which is predominant.

The first section of the book is composed of medical recipes interspersed with approximately twenty culinary recipes. The bulk of the culinary recipes are for sweet cakes, fruit preserves, confectionary, and sweet wines, all of which were loosely bracketed with medicines because they were made with sugar. However, there are also a few recipes for general cooking in this section, including Dutch Beef, mince pies, and baked pork leg. The writer was particularly interested in a cluster of confections involving meringue paste and almonds: "French Puffs," page 35, "A New French Puff," page 36, "Almond Puffs," and "Chocolatta Puffs," both page 40, and "Chocolate Almonds," page 46. Standard French Puffs were meringues of a sort. The book's recipe for the new sort of French Puffs outlines a meringue paste stiffened with enough ground almonds to roll out and cut into shapes. It is an uncommon recipe.

The second section of the book contains food recipes of all kinds: meat and fish dishes, puddings, pies, tarts, cakes, various cheeses, fritters, pancakes, fruit preserves, and sweet wines. There is a recipe for oatcakes on page 94 and an uncommon "Receipt to Make Cakes Boyled" on page 95. A few medical recipes are written among the food recipes.