Manuscript Location

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

Place of Origin

United States ➔ New York ➔ Albany

Date of Composition

perhaps begun ca. 1835; completed 1837

Description

This book of approximately 50 written pages contains two inscriptions: "Harriet M. Van Rensselaer" on the front flyleaf, and "Miss H. M. Van Rensselaer Albany 1837" on the back flyleaf. The back inscription is likely the date when Harriet completed the book, but she almost certainly began it somewhat earlier, for the mood of her hand in digital pages 3 through 18 is dramatically different from the mood of her hand starting on digital page 19. This strongly suggests that Harriet composed the first clutch of pages some months or years before she wrote digital page 19 and beyond. Further suggesting a time gap between sittings, Harriet rewrote a number of recipes in the later section that she had written on digital pages 3 through 18. Digital page 22, for example, contains three recipes written on previous pages: "Pumpkin Pies" and "Pancakes" (both also outlined on digital page 6) and "Queen's Cake" (also outlined on digital page 4). Additional Instances of recipe repetition occur in later sections of the book as well, indicating that the book was written in several different sittings.

The book is almost entirely given over to recipes for cakes, tea cakes, pastry, custards and creams, and fruit preserving, all of which were current in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Of particular interest is the recipe for "Bally Bushes" on digital page 24. This recipe is quite different from the standard Van Rensselaer recipe for these small, puffy Dutch cakes that appears in several of the Van Rensselaer manuscript cookbooks. One wonders where Harriet got this recipe.

Harriet embarked on another receipt book two years after she finished this one, by which time she had married and become Harriet Maria Van Rensselaer Elmendorf. For biographical information about Harriet and her family, see Harriet Maria Van Rensselaer Elmendorf's receipt book from 1839-1886.