Manuscript Location

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

Place of Origin

United States ➔ New York ➔ Albany

Date of Composition

mostly 1844-ca.1880

Description

Richard Van Rensselaer (1797-1880) was a nephew of Philip Van Rensselaer, the builder of the Van Rensselaer family mansion in Albany, New York. Richard's life was filled with losses. His first wife, Elizabeth, died in 1835, at age 36, nine years after they were married. Three of their four children died in early childhood, and their fourth child, Maria Elizabeth, with whom Richard was close, died at 36. In 1838, Richard married his first wife's sister, Matilda Fonda Van Rensselaer. She died two years before Richard's daughter Maria Elizabeth. Elizabeth wrote a cookbook, and Matilda wrote two, one begun in 1832 and one in 1837. Maria Elizabeth collaborated on all three books.

Richard's receipt book primarily consists of printed pages torn from the 1844 edition of The Kitchen Directory and American Housewife, first published in 1839 and republished as late as 1869 (with the two nominals in the title reversed), and "Metropolitan Hotel Recipes," which may have been a book by that title or an insert in some other book. (The hotel opened at the corner of Broadway and Prince Street, in New York City, in 1852, and was demolished in 1895.) Pages from Kitchen Directory extend from digital pages 13 to 106. Pages from "Metropolitan Hotel" extend from digital pages 107 to 136. The remainder of the book consists of pages headed "Dr. J. R. Stafford's Remedies," which appear to be part of the "Metropolitan Hotel" book or insert. A 1932 receipt was inserted just before the back cover by another individual.

The interest of the book lies in the author's handwritten annotations on the printed pages. These include a recipe for "Wheaten Indian" (corn bread with wheat flour, digital page 52); an annotated recipe for "Crollers" (digital page 39); lengthy annotations for "Black Cake" (digital page 46); an annotated recipe for "Corn Puddings" and the author's own recipe for "Baked Indian Pudding" (digital page 63); annotations for two rice pudding recipes (digital page 65); the author's recipe for pudding sauce (digital pages 68-9); and an annotated recipe for "Tapioca Pudding" (digital page 69). About three-quarters of the clipped recipes are culinary, the remainder medical and household.