Manuscript Location

Historic Cherry Hill, The Edward Frisbee Center for Collections and Research

Place of Origin

United States ➔ New York ➔ Albany

Date of Composition

1816-1835

Description

Arriet Van Rensselaer (1775-1840) was a daughter of Philip and Maria Van Rensselaer, the original owners of Cherry Hill, in Albany, New York. Arriet married Solomon Van Rensselaer (1774-1852) in 1797. Because he was her first cousin and of little wealth, her parents disapproved, and the couple married in secret. As it turned out, Solomon had an illustrious career, first in the military and later in public life. After fighting in Indian conflicts and in the War of 1812, he was appointed  Adjutant General of New York State by Governor John Jay (a Founding Father and also Solomon's close friend) and, in 1818, became Major General of the New York State Militia. From 1819 to 1822, Solomon served as a Federalist Representative in the United States Congress, and from 1822 to 1839 he was the postmaster of Albany.  From 1805 to 1822 Solomon and Arriet lived on Mount Hope, a farm connected to the Cherry Hill estate, where Arriet ran a successful business making and selling butter and cheese. The farm was worked both by paid servants and by enslaved persons, whom Arriet managed. Following the death of Arriet's mother in 1830, Solomon, Arriet, and some of their nine surviving children moved to the Cherry Hill mansion, and the family remained there until Solomon's death in 1852. 

Arriet's receipt book spans 223 pages, the first 130 of which are bound in a notebook and the remainder of which are loose inserts found in the notebook, which the museum has arranged as pages 131 to 223. Newspaper clippings cover many of the notebook pages and comprise the bulk of the inserts. Most of the notebook is in Arriet's small, neat presumed hand, with brief intrusions by several other hands. Some of the inserted pages with writing are also in Arriet's presumed hand, the most interesting being pages 147 to 159, which include records of Arriet's butter and cheese business. The notebook contains the dates 1827 on page 33, and 1833 on page 51. It is not clear whether these dates indicate when these recipes were written in the book or when they were first collected by the writer.

Most of the culinary recipes focus on sweets (cakes, puddings, cheesecakes, and dessert creams and custards), breads and breakfast cakes, fruit preserving, pickles, and wines and other alcoholic drinks. The book also contains many household recipes for such things as paint, varnish, cement, insecticide, soap, and cologne. Most of these recipes are in Arriet's presumed hand and are lengthy, detailed, and technical.  

Among the noteworthy recipes are "Turtulongs:fine for breakfast," which appear to be soft pretzels, first boiled and then baked (page 10); "Potash Cakes, nutritious and wholesome," which are very sweet biscuits, likely for breakfast (page 12); bread in a batch of 134 to 138 1/2 pounds (page 28); "Family Wine," made with currants, cherries, and raspberries (page 90);  "Raspberry Postilla," which is a mysterious mixture of mashed, strained raspberries, with one quarter the weight of fruit of honey, set in the oven overnight (page 107); "Noyau," a liqueur, and "Usquebaugh cordial" (page 110)' "Cutcheree," which appears to be kedgeree but made with split peas rather than the regulation smoked haddock (page 112); "Artificial Olives" made with green walnuts (page 113); and five different kinds of cheesecakes (pages 125-6, not in Arriet's presumed hand). There are at least four recipes reflecting the family's Dutch ancestry: "Oly Cooks" (pages 111 and 138), "New Years Cakes" (page 125), and "Condale or Caudle" (page 137).

A newspaper clipping pasted in to page 48 of the notebook provides an illustration of a table set with the first course of a fancy dinner. The course features eighteen different dishes, many of them complex. This course would likely have been followed by a second course of as many dishes and then a third course of sweets. If this illustration reflects Arriet's style of dinner giving, she was an ambitious hostess.