Anna Rogers Recipe Book, ca. 1770s, in a 17th Century Medical, Chemical, and Household Receipt Book

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[Library Title: Recipe book containing medical, chemical and household recipes and formulas, [circa 1670-1683]]
Manuscript Location
Yale University, Beinecke Library
Holding Library Call No.
Osborn fb255
Manuscript Cookbooks Survey Database ID#
1467
Place of Origin
England
Date of Composition
culinary recipes ca. 1770s
Description
The bulk of this volume consists of a seventeenth-century collection of medical, chemical, and household recipes written on 72 numbered pages, which is preceded by an alphabetical index. This collection belonged to Robert Paston, First Earl of Yarmouth (1631-1683) and his wife Rebecca (ca. 1635-1694); some of the recipes are in their hands. The volume later came into the possession of Anna Rogers, whose name is stamped in red ink on the verso of the second front flyleaf, along with the handwritten date April 6 1765. She is presumed to be the author of a selection of recipes, mostly culinary but interspersed with a few medical recipes, that are written in an uncommonly handsome hand on numbered pages 73-83. Three of the recipes, one culinary and two medical, were taken from publications dated 1770, 1772, and 1777.
 

The culinary recipes in Anna Rogers's hand are: Good Bread made with very little Barm, or Yest, From Floyd Evening Post November 1770; To Pickle Lemmons; Hartshorn Jelly; Lemon Cream; To make a Floating Island; Ingredient’s for Mince Pie’s; Walnut Ketchup; Italian Flummery; To make Yeast; Gooseberry Vinegar; Lemon Shrub; Cowslip Wine; Raison Wine T. Rogers; Currant Wine T. Rogers; To Prevent Butter being tainted by Cows feeding on Turnips and Cabbages; To discover whether flour be Adulterated with Whiting or Chalk. The floating island outlined is the usual eighteenth-century type: a lightly sweetened puree of roasted apples mixed with egg whites and then beaten into a voluminous meringue. This fluff was heaped in dish and presented with cream poured around it, as though it were afloat. Moisture evidently prevented the meringue from mounting and/or eroded the island in the dish, and hence this warning in the recipe's final line: "N. B.Take care that every implement be quite dry or else good bye Island."

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