Manuscript Location

Winterthur Library, Quaker and Special Collections

Place of Origin

United States ➔ Pennsylvania ➔ Philadelphia

Date of Composition

1749-1750

Description

This recipe book is inscribed: Elizabeth Coultas Her Receipt Book January ye: 9th 1749/1750. Elizabeth Coultas may have been Elizabeth Ewen, who married James Coultas on March 13, 1735, in Philadelphia, and who died around 1769. The book has 19 leaves, most of which are written on both sides, making approximately 40 pages. The first 31 pages are in the hand of the inscriber, who wrote mostly culinary recipes through the middle of page 26, and mostly medical recipes (primarily for salves) from there to the end. Coultas's culinary recipes include orange, coconut, and potato puddings; meatballs; fricassees of chicken and rabbit, pickled walnuts and onions; stuffed eels; calf's foot jelly (or gelatin); currant jelly; beef stew; pigeon pie; and carrot pie. A recipe on digital page 14B is curiously titled "To make a 500 pound pudding," although it actually yields a conventional boiled raisin pudding weighing barely more than one pound. The remainder of the book, comprising a mix of household, medical, and culinary recipes, is in at least two other hands. This section includes a recipe for blue dye for linen and cotton and a recipe attributed to Susanna Wright of Susquehanna.

To view digital images of this book, click on the link under "Multimedia" in the library catalog, and then click on "1700s."