Manuscript Location

Folger Shakespeare Library, Manuscripts

Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

begun ca. 1688, recipes likely ca. 1710-1720

Description

This book of 25 written pages (on 21 numbered leaves) is particularly rich in recipes for fruit, flower, and herb wines, including gooseberry, cowslip, and sage. Recipes for fruit preserving, dessert creams, and cakes are also well represented. The book also contains a few medical receipts, such as "A Dyet Drink for the Greene sicknesse," "A Water for sore eyes," several salves for the breast, and "To abate [th]e swelling of [th]e throat by [th]e small pox."

Twenty-four pages of printed material, with a date of 1688, are pasted in at the beginning of the book, prior to the first numbered leaf. The handwritten recipes, however, are likely at least a generation later than this material, as they include a treacle gingerbread made with butter and sugar (leaf 7r) and "To make a cake without Yeast," which is essentially a modern fruitcake made in a very large size suitable for a wedding or other large formal party (leaf 17r).