Manuscript Location

New York Public Library, Schwarzman Building - Manuscripts & Archives Division

Place of Origin

United States ➔ New York ➔ New York

Date of Composition

1850

Description

The first thirty-three pages of this manuscript are given over to exercises in French vocabulary and composition. The remainder is a cookbook. The cookbook is divided into three major sections, all with headings: cakes, puddings, and breads. The recipes in these sections together constitute about a third of the culinary material. The remaining culinary material consists of recipes written into a large gap of pages between the puddings and breads sections. These additional recipes include still more cakes, puddings, and breads, along with soups, meat and fish dishes, desserts, preserves, and drinks, in no discernible order. There is an index in the back of the notebook, but it is not terribly helpful, as it is missing a number of recipes.

Despite its organizational flaws, this is an interesting book. Though composed in the mid-nineteenth century, in an obviously privileged household in a large eastern city, the recipes are still geared to the hearth rather than the modern enclosed iron stove, with numerous references to the Dutch oven, the reflector oven, and spits. Also interesting are the book's many French recipes, which reflect the increasing fashionableness of French cooking among the well-to-do at this time. Most of the French recipes have been heavily adapted and some are unworkable. Most of the sweet dishes, cakes, and tea breads that comprise the bulk of the book are Anglo-American, though a few are French, such as cream-filled meringues and a complicated Gâteau de mille feuilles à la Chantilly. Also of note is a thoroughly Americanized interpretation of the Greek dolmades, which are cooked in cabbage leaves and unwrapped before serving.