Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

ca. 1725-ca. 1750

Description

While this 36-page cookbook does contain some recipes for cakes, sweet dishes, and preserves, the bulk of its recipes address meat and fish cookery, which is unusual in English manuscript cookbooks of this period. An especially interesting recipe is Scallopt Oysters, which calls for baking the oysters in actual scallops shells. The recipes were current through much of the eighteenth century, but a recipe for "Plum Cake without Yeast" suggests a date before 1750. Later in the century, cakes raised by beating rather than with yeast were commonplace.

The book is written in a number of consecutive hands, suggesting that it may have been a collaborative project among friends. However, since the pages are of widely varying sizes, it is possible that they were gathered from different sources and bound into a volume by a collector, either of the period of later. Many of the recipes are attributed. One recipe was evidently sent via post to "J. Codrington" from "Mrs Blome at Mr Newmans house" in Kent.