Manuscript Location

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

Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

1840-1860

Description

This recipe book contains an index, 19 pages of culinary recipes, and, after a sizeable gap of blank leaves, 3 pages of medical recipes in the back. It appears that the index, the first 9 pages of culinary recipes, and the medical recipes were written by a single individual, albeit in an unusually changeable hand. The remaining culinary recipes, on pages 10 through 19, are not included in the index and seem to have been written by some other author or authors, although some of the handwriting in these latter pages resembles some in first 9 pages. The recipes are of the mid-nineteenth century. A recipe for homemade yeast appearing on page 9 is attributed to an 1855 edition of "The Times." The first 9 pages of the book include recipes for grouse gravy and boiled rice that are flavored with cinnamon, which was not a characteristic English spice in these dishes. The latter culinary section of the book includes a number of molded hot puddings, which were newly fashionable at the time of this manuscript, as well as a lengthy rhyming recipe for salad dressing made from two large boiled potatoes, sieved, and oil "from Lucca."