Manuscript Location

Folger Shakespeare Library, Manuscripts

Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

1749-ca. 1800

Description

This book is inscribed "Miss Betsey Smith's Book 1749" on the inside front cover. However, the book is in at least eight different hands, none of which can be said with certainty to be that of the inscriber, and it contains a date of 1788 on page 115. There are around 90 pages of recipes written on 148 numbered pages, as well as an 8-page index at the end through the letter "P." At least two pages containing indexed recipes (125-126) are missing, as are, presumably, the final pages of the index.

The book is particularly rich in recipes for pastry (including at least five meat or fish pies), preserved foods (pickles, collars, and cured meats), dessert jellies and creams, dessert cakes and biscuits, fruit preserves, and fruit and flower wines. There is an interestiing recipe for roasted beef rump (page 27) that entails a bready forcemeat stuffing and a sauce of "strong broth," aromatics, shallots, and butter, thickened with a little flour. The recipe for "Burnt Cream" (the historic Anglo-American term for crème brûlée) on page 76 is uncommon. The cream is flavored with a stick of cinnamon and five bay leaves, and the crust is achieved by pouring liquid caramel over the cream rather than by covering the cream with dry sugar and burning the sugar with a salamander, the usual eighteenth-century procedure.

In addition to culinary recipes. the volume includes a few household recipes on page 148.