Manuscript Location

Folger Shakespeare Library, Manuscripts

Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

1740, with a few later additions

Description

This 102-page book is inscribed "Mrs. Knights receipt Book 1740" on the front endleaf. It appears to be mostly in the hand of the inscriber, except for a few recipes inserted in random open spaces. One of these inserted recipes, "To Make a Trifle," page 43, is copied from Susannah Carter's The Frugal Housewife, first published circa 1765. The front section of the book, through page 57, is primarily culinary, with a few household recipes mixed in; the back section, from pages 60 through 80, is medical. A complete index to the medical recipes appears on pages 88 through 98. An index to the culinary recipes through the letter "D" appears on pages 101-2.

The culinary section of the book is loosely organized: general cooking (meat, poultry, fish, sauces, and savory pies) to page 17; pickles and catsups, pages 20-21; fruit preserving and dessert creams and jellies, pages 24-27; puddings, pages 28-32; cakes, little cakes, and breads, pages 36-41; wines and other drinks, pages 46-48; menus, including diagrams of dish placement on the table, pages 50-51; and lists of foods in season and instructions for roasting and boiling various meats and fish, pages 52-53. Although there are only 48 pages of culinary recipes, the book is in fact quite comprehensive, for between five and eight recipes are written on most of the pages.

Mrs. Knight's recipes are composed in the typical idiom of eighteenth-century professional cookbook authors, indicating that Mrs. Knight copied all or most of her recipes from published cookbooks. Two of her favorite sources are readily identified: Eliza Smith's The Compleat Housewife, first published in 1727, and Mary Kettilby's A Collection of Above Three Hundred Receipts, first published in 1714. Most of the meat recipes on the first page of Mrs. Knight's book come from Smith, and most of those on the third page from Kettilby. Both Smith and Kettilby supply some of Mrs. Knight's pudding recipes, while Smith is the primary source of Mrs. Knight's gingerbreads, and Kettilby provides most of Mrs. Knight's cakes. Smith is the source of one of Mrs. Knight's dinner menus on page 51. In addition, sporadic recipes in Mrs. Knight's book trace their origins to John Nott's Confectioners' Dictionary (1723) and to The Lady's Companion, published in 1740 as the second edition of Whole Duty of a Woman (1737). These sources, taken together, probably account for roughly one quarter to one third of Mrs. Knight's recipes overall. The sources of the rest remain to be determined.

A recipe that begs an interesting question is Mrs. Knight's Pigeons Transmogrified, on page 2. This recipe appears verbatim Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery Made Plain & Easy, first published in 1747, and is generally considered to be original to Glasse, as many of Glasse's recipes are not. Notwithstanding the fact that Mrs. Knight inscribed her cookbook with date 1740, it is possible that she did consult Mrs. Glasse's book too, in which case many of the recipes that Mrs. Knight appears to have copied to from Smith and Kettiby could actually have come from Glasse, as Glasse copied both of those authors too, particularly Smith.

Mrs. Knight's book includes an uncommon recipe for walnut pudding on page 30 and a surprisingly late recipe for historic cracknells, first boiled and then baked, on page 39. The latter recipe is from Kettilby. A medical recipe from Connecticut is written on page 77.