Manuscript Location

Vassar College, Archives and Special Collections Library

Place of Origin

United States ➔ New York ➔ Belmont
England
Scotland

Date of Composition

ca. 1840s-1870s

Description

This recipe book is written in a notebook measuring 8 x 6.25 inches (L/W). The entire book is hand paginated, from 1 to 146, except for two unpaginated leaves that occur between pages 95 and 96. There is a page index at the front, with entries for the recipes on pages 1-52 and pages 95-97. The recipes are culinary except for a small section of medical recipes at the very end of the book. 

This book contains two inscriptions by the principal author. The author inscribed the front flyleaf with her married name, at some point after 1866, when her marriage took place: E. Horwood's Written Receipt Book. In addition, she signed the recto of the second unpaginated leaf (between pages 95 and 96) with her maiden name, where she also wrote the name of her childhood home and a date: Elizabeth Church Belvidere 1842. The first 112 pages of the book, as well as the medical recipes at the very end of the book, are likely in a single hand, albeit in different moods, presumably that Elizabeth Church Horwood. But these pages could also be written in two or more similar hands. The remainder of the book, after page 112, is in several other hands that are markedly different from the hand or hands of the first 112 pages. Pages 134-138 are written upside down for no clear reason. The Vassar College collection also includes a slightly later cookbook of which Elizabeth Horwood is the primary author. 

Elizabeth Fitzhugh Horwood was born Elizabeth Church in 1822, the seventh of nine children born to Philip Schuyler Church (1778-1861) and Anna Matilda Stewart Church (1786-1865). Elizabeth's father was born in Boston and then, as a small child, moved to England with his family, where he attended Eton College. He returned to the United States in 1797, where he completed his law studies in New York. From 1798 to 1800, he was a captain in the U.S. army and served as aide-de-camp to Alexander Hamilton, who was his uncle. In 1800, Philip acquired a 100,000-acre tract of land in New York's Allegany and Genesee counties, where he established the planned village of Angelica, named after his mother. He married in 1805 and was appointed the first judge of New York County Court for Allegany County in 1807. In 1810 he completed the building of a thirty-room mansion called Belvidere (or Villa Belvidere) in Belmont, New York (near Angelica), where Elizabeth and her siblings were raised. (The mansion still stands.) In 1866, in a church in Albany, New York, Elizabeth married Reverend Robert Horwood, an Episcopal clergyman. From 1854 to 1865, Reverend Horwood had served in parishes in upstate New York, but he assumed duties in various Scottish and English parishes starting around the time of his marriage, and Elizabeth moved with her husband to Great Britain. Robert Horwood left behind a record book, which indicates that he was active in the church at least through 1878. His life dates have not been determined. Elizabeth Horwood died in 1898, possibly in Great Britain.

Given the two inscriptions, it is logical to assume that this book was begun in the 1840s, at Belvidere, where Elizabeth may have continued to live until her marriage in 1866, and then continued in Great Britain. And indeed the recipes bear this assumption out. The book includes many recipes of a distinctively American kind, particularly many American cakes, such as the "Molasses Fruitcake" outlined on page 108. However, like the slightly later Elizabeth Horwood cookbook in the Vassar College collection, this book also contains a number of recipes that are more characteristically English than American. One would expect to find the American recipes in the front of the book and the English recipes added toward the back, but this is not the case. The American and English recipes are mixed together, which is puzzling.  

The bulk of the book is given over to recipes for cakes, puddings, dessert creams, and fruit preserves, all entered in no apparent order. However, there are also some recipes for dishes served in the principal courses of the meal, including "Mixing a Fricassee," page 35, "Curry Chicken," page 37, "Macaroni Soup," page 37, "To Dress Cold Meats," page 43, "Frigadelle" (properly "fricadelle," a veal forcemeat), page 44, "Sausages." page 47, "Potted Shad," page 65, "To Stew Venison Steaks," page 68, and "Curry Powder," page 69. The last recipe is misleadingly titled and is extremely interesting. The recipe calls for pounding curry spices with a grated coconut and one pint of milk, producing a sauce in which a chicken is cooked. The result is basically a coconut chicken curry. This dish is not seen in American cookbooks of this period and was almost surely collected in Great Britain.