Manuscript Location

Folger Shakespeare Library, Manuscripts

Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

ca. 1650-ca. 1700

Description

Inscribed "The Lady Grace Castleton's Booke of receipts" on the inside front cover, this book is in two parts. The larger part, written in the front of the notebook on 177 pages (with some pages missing or blank), is predominantly medical, with about 46 pages containing recipes for foods and drinks, particularly those associated with sweets banquets such as fruit preserves, dessert creams and jellies, and fruit wines. The smaller part of the book, written from the inside back cover going toward the middle of the notebook and upside-down in relation to the front, comprises a 2-page index to the front section (through page 66) and fourteen pages of general cooking recipes. Many of the recipes in both sections are attributed.

The front of the book appears to be exclusively in Lady Castleton's hand until around page 84, and possibly in her hand, as well as other hands, through page 101. From page 102 to the end all recipes are written in hands other than Lady Castleton's. A clutch of recipes headed "Sarah Castleton's receipts" begins on page 124 and continues, with some intrusions by other hands, to around page 159. Sarah Evelyn (died 1717) was the second wife of Lady Castleton's husband, George Saunderson, Viscount Castleton. The front of the book includes several culinary recipes of particular interest: "To make a rare grat [great] cake" (with rare instructions for casting the cake, page 15), an early recipe for modern cracknels (page 32), an uncommon recipe for the autumn treat called rowan cheese (page 61), "Jocolate Almonds" (page 97), an elaborate "Crawfish Soope" (page 171), and an unusual mousse-like version of "Chocolatt Cream" (page 177), which may be of the eighteenth century.

The index and the first twelve pages of recipes in the back of the book are in Lady Castleton's hand, the final three pages of recipes in two other hands. The heading "Good Cokery" appears at the top of the first page of recipes. The recipes include meat and fish dishes, two pickles for mushrooms and two for fish, and a "biske." Of special note is the recipe "To dresse mushrooms my Lord Digbys way" (page 8). The lord is surely Sir Kenelm Digby (1603-1665), whose book of receipts was published posthumously by his assistant, in 1669, and went on to become a bestseller. The mushroom recipe is not included in the published book.

Lady Castleton lived from 1635 to 1667. She married George Saunderson, 5th Viscount Castleton, in 1657 and had at least six children with him. Her husband served in parliament starting in 1661, and she followed him to London, where she died.