Manuscript Location

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

Place of Origin

United States

Date of Composition

1824-1855

Description

The principal author of this book wrote recipes for meats and pickles on pages 1 and 2; a few recipes for cakes and many for puddings on pages 3 through 8; and more recipes for cakes on pages 29 through 35, with a few recipes for puddings, tart pastes, biscuits, and preserves mixed in. Most of the principal author's pudding recipes on pages 3 through 8 are dated 1825, and most are copied or paraphrased from Amelia Simmons's American Cookery, first published in 1796 and republished in numerous editions into the 1820s. A few of the author's cake recipes in the final section of her cookbook are likewise dated 1825 and/or taken from Simmons, but most are undated and derived from other sources, some probably published (to judge from the wording) and others not. The recipes for Fire Cake, or cornmeal scones (apparently), page 30, and Milk Emptins, or milk and flour yeast, page 33, are uncommon. Pages 11 through 27 of the book contain recipes in several other hands, all of them of the 1850s or later. There are a number of recipes, also of the 1850s or later, laid in.