Manuscript Location

University of Pennsylvania Libraries, Kislak Center for Special Collections - Manuscripts

Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

1852-1877

Description

This English recipe book, compiled during the years 1852 to 1877, contains a mix of culinary, medical, and household recipes, as well as instructions for knitting, gardening, and the care of particular plants. Newspaper clippings of recipes and household advice are pasted in the volume. Also pasted in is a receipt for a folding spring bedstead from Stewart & Co., in London. It is signed E. P. Henderson, who was possibly the compiler of the book. 

The culinary recipes cover soups, meat dishes, souffles, sauces, cheeses, puddings and other desserts, cakes, and drinks. Among the recipes are Indian curry, cheese souffle; butter sauces and fish sauces; apricot, castle, celestine, and Marlborough puddings; currant, ginger, Madeira, seed, and Sultan [Sultana?] cakes; ornamental sugar; and ice cream. There are also recipes for spruce beer and Francatelli's moselle, the latter referring to Charles Elme Francatelli (1805-1876), a celebrity chef and cookbook author who was briefly head cook to Queen Victoria. Also included are instructions for cleaning grates and for making floor varnish and polishing oils, as well as a remedy for swallowing a wasp.