This very grand recipe book contains 348 pages of recipes, the bulk of which are culinary, and a partial alphabetical index at the back. It consists of approximately fourteen lengthy recipe sections written by (perhaps) eight to ten different individuals. The recipes in two of these sections, on pages 128-175 and pages 176-205, are numbered 1 through 184 and 1 through 148, respectively. In between and occasionally within these lengthy sections still other hands intrude. The manuscript is annotated throughout in the hand of Anne Western, who has written her name in the margin adjacent to dozens of recipes, and who has crossed out many recipes and annotated them “not this.” In addition, she has corrected or expanded some recipes in the margins, such as “A Biske for ffish” (page 59). Crucially, she has attributed several recipes to family members, including “ant cartwrights” (pages 4, 37, and 311), “sis Western” (page 5), “my mothers” (page 121), and "cozn Westerns" (page 310). Anne Western appears to have submitted the book to very close scrutiny. For example, she annotated the recipe for “Mis Kings Cakes” (page 37), from “ant cartwright,” “ye quantitie of butter is not sett down but I believe it is a pound.” Then she evidently decided that the recipe was not worth saving, for she crossed it out and also crossed out her annotation. To judge from the recurrence of the principal hands and from Anne Western’s annotations, the book was likely written collaboratively, either entirely or mostly by members of a single extended family. The family seems to have taken the project with high seriousness. The book is compiled in a leather-bound folio notebook with a clasp, and most of the authors made the effort to write in neat, even beautiful, hands, some with flourishes, especially around recipe titles. Given the scope of the project, it is surprising that the book lacks any sort of inscription.
The final two recipes written on three unpaginated leaves at the very beginning of the book are dated 1714. This may be the approximate date of the entire book—or the recipes on these leaves may have been added after the bulk of the book was written. In general, the recipes are suggestive of the tail end of the seventeenth century. For example, “Biscatelles for Banqueting” (page 80) outlines a meringue-like conceit that was in its heyday in the first half of the seventeenth century and references (in the title) a seventeenth-century entertainment. But the spelling is transitional from the (usual) seventeenth-century form, “bisketello” (from “bisket’), to the eighteenth-century, French-influenced form, “biscuit.” Similar transitional forms of this word appear elsewhere in the book: “To make Biscake bread” (page 211), “To make fren;h Biscake (page 211), and “To make Biscake” (page 212). Interestingly the recipe for “Bisketts” (page 301) is entered as “Biscakes” in the index. Several recipes are identified as “soop,” a word that became current at the end of the seventeenth century. Likewise, the recipe for treacle gingerbread on page 127 calls for eggs, and the treacle gingerbread outlined on page 312 has butter, both of which additions crept into treacle gingerbreads around the turn of the eighteenth century.
The book contains both culinary and medical recipes, but the bulk of the recipes are culinary. Although there are random clutches of recipes by subject (meat dishes, pies, preserves, medicines, etc.), there is no extended organization anywhere in the book. There are a number of noteworthy recipes. “To Make a Snake” (page 31) is made with pate a choux, albeit without butter. The paste is stuffed into a “spout” and then pressed out (with “strength”) into a pan of hot butter and fried brown, making a large, coiled beignet. The beignet is brushed with butter, sugared, and rushed to the table “or else it will be cold.” In “An Observation” (page 71) the writer tells us that powdered sugar or Barbary sugar are best for syrups and candied preserves. For ordinary preserving purposes, “other sugar,” presumably of lesser quality, will do, but two extra ounces must be used to compensate for “the waste” that occurs when the sugar is clarified. “A Flesh Sallet” (page 101) is a sort of chef’s salad. It consists of shredded roasted turkey breast or veal mixed with various pickles, anchovies, and lemon slices, surrounded by little mounds of shredded beef tongue (likely smoked), crumbled hard-boiled egg yolk, and shredded hard-boiled egg white. “Jews Bread” (page 305) is similar to the delicate, crisp-light confection commonly known as Prince Bisket (and called “biscake” in this manuscript). Anne Western has annotated the recipe “to eat with chocolate.” No doubt there are many other recipes worthy of attention in this fascinating book.
