Manuscript Location

Folger Shakespeare Library, Manuscripts

Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

ca. 1690 and mostly ca. 1750-ca. 1800, with some later material

Description

This manuscript consists of three chronologically separate collections of material: a receipt book compiled around 1690; a collection of culinary recipes mostly written during the second half of the eighteenth century; and a few scattered pages of recipes and knitting instructions compiled in the mid-nineteenth century.  

The 1690 receipt book is written on 166 numbered pages and 19 unnumbered pages in the front of the volume, and on 15 numbered pages and 6 unnumbered pages in the back. The unnumbered pages in the front contain an 11-page index to pages 1 through 166 followed by 8 pages of recipes that are not indexed; the unnumbered pages in the back contain a 2-page index to pages 1 to 15 followed by 4 pages of recipes that are not indexed. The 1690 receipt book is in several hands. The compilers seem to have lived in Derbyshire or Nottinghamshire, for several of the surnames are those of families in these counties, and there are references to a person from Melbourne, [Derbyshire], and to another from Nottingham. Many of the recipes are attributed, some to well-known individuals. The first page in the front section of the 1690 receipt book opens with the words "Several receipts transcribed from a book of the Earle of Chesterfields" (Philip Stanhope, 1584-1656). Manuscript scholar Elisabeth Chaghafi has identified approximately eighty recipes in the 1690 book that also occur verbatim in two manuscript recipe volumes attributed to Philip Stanhope, First Earl of Chesterfield, at the Wellcome Library, in London, UK.

Most of the recipes in the 1690 receipt book are medical, including one that refers to Virginian snake root (page 115). However, the front section of the 1690 book contains about twenty-five culinary recipes along with a few household recipes, and the back section of the book includes a handful of culinary recipes on the final unnumbered page. Two of the culinary recipes in the front section also occur in the Stanhope volumes at the Wellcome Library: "How to make Blanck Mange" (page 142) and "A receipt to preserue Apricock's." (page 151). Elisabeth Chagjhafi has drawn up a list of the remaining culinary recipes in the front of the 1690 receipt book:
1. "A Receipt for Pancakes" (p. 32)
2. "To make hony rosett" (p. 125)
3. "A receipt to Make Excellent Metheglin" (p. 139)
4. "How to Make Vsqua bath" (p. 140)
5. "How to make Excellent syrup of Roses (p. 141)
6. "A receipt for Oats cakes" (p. 144)
7. "My Lady Sackfields receipt to make Meath" (p. 144)
8. "How to Make Mackeroones" (p. 145)
9. "How to make an Allmond-tarte" (p. 146)
10. "How to Make Iumballs" (p. 146)
11. "How to Make Saussiges" (p. 146)
12. "How to make Bisket Bread" (p. 147)
13. "To make Hypocrass" (p. 147)
14. "To make Barley Creame" (p. 148)
15. "To make Excellent thin Cheese" (p. 148)
16. "To make Excellent syrup of Violetts" (p. 148)
17. "A receipt to preserue Cherries or Rasberries" (p. 150)
18. "A receipt to make clear cakes of Raspberries" (p. 150)
19. "To make Iumballs" (p. 151)
20. "A receipt to make allmond Creame" (p. 151)
21. "To make Ramboose which is very good and stenghthning" (p. 151)
22. "To make Ielly of pippins either red or amber colour which you please" (p. 157)
23. "To make scoth broth very cordiall & good" (p. 161)

The manuscript also includes a later collection of culinary recipes written in several different hands. This collection occurs in the front of the volume following the 1690 receipt book, on pages numbered 3 to 33. Most of the recipes in this section probably date from between 1750 and 1800, including German Puffs (similar to Yorkshire pudding), "A Pretty Dish for Supper" (soft meringue puffs beaten with fruit jelly), and Quins Fish Sauce. However, some of the recipes are of the mid-nineteenth century, such as the recipe for pound cake on page 30, which includes modern instructions to "butter the tin" and line it with paper.

Finally, on six unnumbered pages (written upside down) in the front of the volume preceding the first page of the 1690 receipt book, as well as on five unnumbered pages in the back of the volume preceding the first page of the 1690 section, there are culinary recipes and knitting instructions that were added still later. This material does not predate 1835 and may well be later, for it includes recipes for cakes leavened with baking soda. 

Three loose sheets contain references to a Mr. Tabberer, surgeon, Repton; a Francis Fox of Derby, ca. 1760; and a fund raising drive for Melbourne Church, 1862. Recipes and knitting instructions are written on additional loose sheets.