Description
Inscribed "Mrs. Johnston's Receipts For Cokry and Pastry work" at the top of the first page, this volume contains 106 numbered culinary recipes on 101 numbered pages, all in the hand of the inscriber, concluding with the word "Finis." Mrs. Johnston was likely Scottish. A recipe for marbled bread (part white wheat and part dark rye), page 8, is titled "Marle Bread," from the Scottish "marled," meaning "marbled" (
OED). The same recipe calls for the flours by the "forpet," a Scottish dialect word meaning a fourth of a measure (
OED), in this case one peck, or 14 pounds. Likewise, a "mutchkin" of water is called for in the recipe for "Celery Comfits," page 60, and elsewhere. The measure was equal to the fourth part of the old Scottish pint (or 15 fluid ounces, nearly a full American pint).
Mrs. Johnston's book is highly organized, suggesting that it is a fair copy of recipes gathered over a period of time. The recipes proceed (roughly) as follows: cakes and breads, pages 1-10; meat and fish pies, pages 11-20; dessert creams, pages 20-26; cheesecakes and custards, pages 26-7; puddings, pages 28-32; posset, page 32; sweet tarts, pages 33-5; fruit preserves, pages 36-41; fruit, flower, and spice syrups, pages 41-5; nut preserves, pages 45-6; fruit jellies and marmalades, pages 47-52; additional fruit preserves, pages 52-5; fruit, flower, and spice confectionary, pages 55-7; still more fruit preserves, pages 57-60; comfits and the like, pages 60-2; sweet wines, pages 63-6; pickled vegetables and flowers, pages 66-71; meat and fish dishes and made dishes, pages 71-7; soups, pages 78-80; more meat and fish dishes, pages 81-5; sauces for meat, fowl, and fish, pages 86-8; still more meat and fish dishes, pages 89-101.
There are a number of uncommon dishes outlined, some of which are quite elaborate. "To make Claret Wine & Moonshine," page 75, is French toast first soaked in sweetened red wine, then dipped in spiced egg, fried, and served with a sauce of sack and sugar. "To Dress a Sea Eel," page 83, involves a sauce of one hundred mussels and cockles, white wine, and butter and a garnish of fried whiting and fried oysters. The unusual recipe "To dress a calf's head sweet" stretches over two pages. It calls for almonds, currants, and sweet spices and is served with fanciful garnishes, including fritters made with the brains. Of particular interest is the recipe "To Make Short Bread," page 10, which appears to be an unsweetened, yeast-leavened precursor of today's Scottish shortbread. (The recipe is quite similar to one outlined in a cookbook partly in the hand of
Lady Grisell Baillie.)
Four pages of recipes in a second hand have been added at the end of Mrs. Johnston's book. Former owners of the volume include Sara Anderson and Blanche Anding.
Manuscript scholar Elisabeth Chaghafi has made the extraordinary discovery that this manuscript is virtually identical to the first printed Scots cookbook,
Mrs. McLintock's receipts for cookery and pastry-work (Glasgow, 1736). Whether the manuscript was copied from the printed cookbook or the printed book from the manuscript is impossible to determine for certain, but circumstantial evidence suggests that the latter is more likely. (The printed book may have appeared under the name "McLinctock" because that name is purely Scots, whereas "Johnston" could be either Scots or English.) Meanwhile, the second printed Scots cookbook,
Mrs. Johnston's Receipts, published in Edinburgh in 1741, seems to be simply an expanded version of the McLintock cookbook, with thirty-five additional recipes appended after "Hunting Pudding." Hopefully, a researcher will undertake a close side-by-side comparison of the Johnston manuscript and the two printed books and uncover the exact nature of their interrelationship.
