Description
Elizabeth Van Rensselaer (1799-1835) was a daughter of Soloman and
Harriet “Arriet'' Van Rensselaer. When she was a young girl, she moved with her family to
Cherry Hill, the Van Rensselaer family mansion in Albany, New York, where she grew up with her many siblings. In 1826, she married
Richard Van Rensselaer (1797-1880), her father's cousin. The couple had four children, only one of whom, Maria Elizabeth (1829-1865), survived into adulthood. In 1837, two years after Elizabeth's death, Richard married Elizabeth's sister, Matilda Fonda Van Rensselaer. Matilda compiled two recipe books, one
begun in 1832 and one
begun in 1837, to both of which Maria Elizabeth contributed.
This book has a complicated multiple authorship. It contains six inscriptions: “E. Van Rensselaer Receipt Book” on the front cover; "Elizabeth Van Rensselaer 1825," "Maria Elizabeth Van Rensselaer 1835," and "Miss E. Van Rensselaer" on the inside front cover; and "Elizabeth Van Rensselaer" and "Richard Van Rensselaer" on the front flyleaf. Digital pages 4 through 35 appear to be in a single hand, perhaps that of Elizabeth Van Rensselaer. A new hand debuts on digital page 36. This hand is predominant through digital page 78 but is interrupted repeatedly by other hands, especially after digital page 50. Digital pages 79 through 117 comprise essays on philosophy and astronomy, illustrated with precisely drawn diagrams, which the library has attributed to Richard Van Rensselaer. The remainder of the book to the back cover contains pasted-in clippings. Digital pages 127 to 224 comprise loose sheets that were originally inserted into the notebook.
The initial section of the book, perhaps in Elizabeth Van Rensselaer's hand, is almost entirely given over to recipes for sweet dishes and cakes, including the family recipe for the small, puffy Dutch cakes called "Ballubuyshes" (digital page 20). The one savory recipe in this section is a pickle for 300 pounds of meat prior to smoking (digital page 33). The recipes in the remainder of the book (to page 78) are about two-thirds culinary and one-third medical and household. The culinary recipes skew toward pastry, cakes, desserts, and fruit preserving but also include some savory preparations. Among the latter are a catsup made with butternuts instead of the more usual green walnuts (digital page 44) and a pickle for beef (digital page 50) attributed to K. K. Van Rensselaer, who was presumably Killian Killian Van Rensselaer (1763-1845), who served as a Federalist Representative to the United States Congress from 1801 to 1811. (The same recipe, with the same attribution, in the same assertive hand, recurs on digital page 73.)
