Description
This recipe book is written in a hardcover notebook measuring 9 x 7 inches (L/W). The front cover is embossed with the name Elizabeth Horwood. The book contains 286 stamped pages, most of which have writing. The first 13 pages are occupied by a subject index that is divided into the following parts: soups, fish, meat, cured [foods] and pickles, vegetables, bread, tea cakes, cake (the longest), puddings (almost as long as cake), creams, preserves, and "useful receipts" (household, cosmetic, knitting, and dairy recipes).
For Elizabeth Horwood's biography, see
Elizabeth Horwood Recipe Book, 1840s-1870s, which is the earlier of two Horwood cookbooks in the Vassar College collection. Born Elizabeth Church, in western New York, in 1822, the author married Reverend Robert Horwood in 1866 and moved with her husband to Great Britain, where she lived at least through 1878, and possibly until her death in 1898. Both of her recipe books contain a mix of American and English recipes. The cake recipes in this book are especially American in spirit, as is also the case in the earlier book. The book includes two cakes of Dutch provenance that are typical in recipe books written by New York State families who had Dutch ancestry, as the Churches did: "Oley Koeks," page 93, the forerunner of American doughnuts, and "Hard Wafers," page 96, a Dutch-influenced name for iron-baked wafers. There are also recipes for Silver Cake and Gold Cake, page 96, which were favorite company cakes in America starting in the 1840s. Among the English recipes are two recipes for gingerbread on page 101, both of which call for "treacle," the British name for "molasses," and recipes for "Scotch Scones" and "Leed's Pudding," both on page 102. In addition, several recipes in the book contain references to British currency, such as "shillings."
The hands in this book are difficult to assess, as is also true of the earlier Horwood book. The bulk of the book is either in the same hand, albeit in different moods, presumably that of Elizabeth Horwood, or in several similar hands. Particularly interesting in this connection is a recipe for "Belvidere Charlotte" on page 218, which is annotated "delicious." The recipe is attributed to Elizabeth Harwood, whose childhood home was Belvidere, but whether or not Horwood actually wrote this recipe is unclear. The hand of the recipe is similar to the dominant hand of the front of the book, which is presumably Horwood's, but the charlotte hand is neater and more upright. As in the earlier Horwood recipe book, several hands that are markedly different from the predominant hand (or hands) have also written recipes in the book.
Most of the savory dishes outlined in the book are more typical of upper-class American and English cooking in the middle of the nineteenth century than at the end of the century, such as "Terrapin chicken," page 36, "Fricandeau," page 39, "Fricassee of Chicken," page 40, "To fry chickens with cream," page 41, "Curry chicken," page 42, "Irish stew," also page 42, "Frigadelle," page 43, and "To stew venison steaks," page 45. Several of these recipes are also outlined in the earlier Horwood cookbook, including "Frigadelle," a veal forcemeat properly spelled "fricadelle." But the book also contains recipes for later dishes ushered in by the new (or, really, renewed) vogue for French cooking in the last quarter of the century, such as "Chicken Jellied" and "Kidneys in wine," both outlined on page 44.
