Manuscript Location

Vassar College, Archives and Special Collections Library

Place of Origin

United States ➔ New York

Date of Composition

ca. 1850s-1870s

Description

This recipe book is written in a hardcover ruled notebook measuring 10 x 9 inches (L/W). There is no pagination. The entire book is written in black ink, with a wide-nib pen, in a single sprawling, barely controlled, but perfectly legible hand, presumably that of Henrietta Church, whose name is embossed on the front cover. There is a subject table in the front, without headings, divided into the following sections: soups; fish dishes; meat and egg dishes; vegetables; puff pastry, homemade liquid yeast, and white loaf bread; breakfast and tea cakes; sweet cakes; and puddings and gelatin jellies. The book was planned. The author allocated a clutch of pages in the body of the notebook for recipes pertaining to each section of the table. There are many blank pages between sections. 

Although the identity of Henrietta Church has not been determined, it is likely that she was related to Elizabeth Church Horwood, for many of the dishes outlined in Henrietta's recipe book are also outlined in one or both of Elizabeth's two recipe books, which are also part of the Vassar College collection. Also of interest, some  of Henrietta's recipes, like some of Elizabeth's recipes, are more characteristically English than American, such as Henrietta's recipe for Pork Pie a la Yorkshire. Perhaps Henrietta collected these recipes from Elizabeth. Or perhaps, like Elizabeth, Henrietta was an American-born woman who lived part of her adult life in Great Britain. 

The savory recipes are characteristic of upper-class American cooking  in the middle third of the nineteenth century: "Fricandeau," "Fricadelles," "Crepinettes," and "Hunting Beef for Christmas." Three of the cakes outlined in book are of Dutch provenance and mark the author as a resident of New York State and, likely, of Dutch heritage: "Puffert" (a yeast-raised fruited tea cake); "Hard Wafers" (a Dutch-influenced name for iron-baked wafers); and "Oley Koeks" (the forerunner of American doughnuts).