Manuscript Location

Library of Congress, Rare Book/Special Collections Reading Room (Jefferson LJ239)

Place of Origin

United States ➔ Massachusetts ➔ Boston

Date of Composition

presumed ca. 1840s-1866

Description

Born Amelia Lee Jackson, Amelia Holmes (1818-1888) married Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) in 1840. The couple lived in Boston and had three children, one of whom was renowned Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was a physician, a medical reformer, and, in his day, an esteemed prose writer and poet. Boston's literary and intellectual elite frequently gathered at the couple's home, where they savored both Oliver Wendell Holmes's scintillating conversation and Amelia Holmes's legendary cooking.

The worldwide vogue for French did not become widespread in America until the end of the nineteenth century, but sophisticates had embraced French cooking by the 1860s, as Amelia Holmes's recipe book attests. Her book of 55 leaves, written in ink, organizes the recipes in the following categories: soups, fish, meats, vegetables, eggs, cakes, caramel sauce, desserts, breads, and drinks. Holmes inserted twenty-four leaves of additional recipes, mostly written in ink, with various dates, in the book. These recipes are now encased in plastic sleeves and housed separately.

To access the recipe book and inserted recipes, click on the link to the finding, then click on "contents list." The book is located in Holmes MS 5 Vol. 1, the inserts in Holmes MS 5 Vol. 2.