Manuscript Location

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

Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

1815-1830

Description

This 86-page cookbook contains alternating sequences of recipes in the same four or five hands, suggesting that it may have been a collaborative project among a circle of friends. The authors were likely men, as the book contains many veterinary recipes (most of which relate to dogs), a schedule of the hunting seasons for various game birds, fishing notes, and at least three different recipes for boot blacking. Roughly half of the recipes are veterinary, medical, or practical. The culinary recipes include Mutton broth, To Stew Carp Brown, Mushroom Liquor and Powder, To Preserve Damsons without Sugar (an unusual recipe), Mulligatawny, Spinach Curry, To Collar Eels, To Fricassee Eggs, To Pickle Mackerel, To Souse Mackerel, Eels Spitchcocked, Water Souchy (broth with flounder), Green Mint Sauce, and Hog's Pudding (blood pudding, rare in manuscript cookbooks). There are very few sweets and cakes. A number of the recipes toward the end of the book are attributed to Dr. Kitchener, whose influential cookbook was first published in 1817.