Manuscript Location

University of Iowa Main Library, Special Collections, Szathmary Culinary Archive

Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

1804-1905

Description

This recipe book begins with a 6-page index, which is followed by recipes on pages numbered 1 through 193, with numbers 152 to 160 skipped. Pages 150 to 186 contain medical and household recipes and are not included in the index. The book was begun by Mary Carnegie in 1804 and then picked up by Susan Gillespie in 1840 and continued by several other authors, some or all of whom were of the Gillespie family, until 1905. Most of the recipes date from before 1860, and all but a few at the end are before 1900. The recipes begin with a section of wines - Cowslip Wine, Russian Wine, Ginger Wine, Champaign of Gooseberries - and then proceed without organization. The sources of many of the recipes are noted, e.g. "Mrs. Carey." Among the less common recipes are Corstorphine Cream, page 11 (a skim milk cream cheese, named after a Scottish village near Edinburgh); Olives le roi, page 85 (beef or veal roulades wrapped in potato pastry and fried); Swedish Sponge Cake, page 103 (made with potato flour); and Basinwards [?] of Macaroni, page 110 (macaroni in cheese sauce, spread in a dish, cooled, cut into rings or rounds, crumbed, and fried in butter).