Manuscript Location

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

Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

1850s-1870s

Description

This book originated in the Heelis family, of which William Heelis, husband of famed children's writer Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), was a member. Although Potter was not the author of this book and never used it, she may have eaten foods prepared from the book's recipes. The book contains diverse material in a number of different hands, including some accounts dated 1851 in the front and some 50 pages of Latin exercises and historical commentary in the back. The thirty-odd culinary recipes, which were written by at least three different individuals, are scattered on the notebook's 45 initial pages, among numerous blank pages and instructions for double knitting, washing a hair brush, and fitting a dress. The front and back pages of the culinary section are mostly given over to cakes and sweet dishes, while the middle portion contains recipes for roast turkey with stuffing, salad, curry sauce, fried fish, cold leg of mutton, and other savory preparations. A recipe for Soda Loaf [Cake] on digital page 14 is marked 1869, and most of the book's culinary material was likely written within a decade on either side of this date.