Manuscript Location

Johns Hopkins University, Milton S. Eisenhower Library

Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

1718

Description

This lavishly bound and well-organized manuscript cookbook is inscribed near the front: "The Lady [scrawled out] / Family Book 1718." The library has determined that the scrawled-out name is Elizabeth Marston. Who obscured her signature, and why, has not been ascertained. The cookbook is written in a single very neat hand, presumably that of Lady Marston, and is divided into three discreet sections, each of which is preceded by a page index: 1. Principal dishes, including soups, meat and fish dishes, puddings (which were then served with the meat roasts), and breads (170 receipts); 2. Banquet and dessert dishes: creams, gelatin jellies, cakes, biscuits, fruit preserves, confectionary, possets, and festive drinks, including chocolate (166 receipts); 3. Medical and cosmetic recipes (162 receipts). The tight organization indicates that the book is a fair copy of recipes gathered by the author over a period of years. The book has original consecutive pagination 1 to 272, with 50 blanks at the end. The culinary recipes occupy pages 1 through 152.

The particular value of this lovely manuscript is that it was compiled near the turn of the eighteenth century, a time when the spiced, sweetened, and fruited meat and fish cookery typical of the late Stuart era was giving way to the French-inflected cooking of the Georgian era, which pivoted on rich brown gravies and piquant sauces. A parallel transition also occurred in the sweet repertory and is evident in this recipe book. There is a recipe for ice cream on page 89 that startles, as the first known printed English recipe for ice cream is outlined in a cookbook (by Mary Eales) that was published in the same year that this recipe book was compiled. Similarly, on page 132, following several old-fashioned recipes for cakes raised with yeast, there is a recipe for a plum cake "without yeast," which is essentially a modern fruit cake, raised by beating butter, sugar, and eggs.

There is a fair amount of close observation and advice throughout, suggesting that the recipes, or at least many of them, were actually made by Lady Marston (or, more precisely, by her cooks, under Lady Marston's supervision). For example, in a recipe for " Orange and Lemon puding" (in modern terms, a very rich tart), page 14, she writes, "Some cover it a top with fine paste but I doe not, when it is allmost enough I pour on butter and strow double Refind Sug^er."

Three recipes of particular note: The recipe for "French Bread," page 26, gives precise hydration. (Alas, the recipe for "Manchett" on the next page does not.) "Mr. Fleet Shepherds Sack Posset," page 146, is delivered in rhyming couplets, a very early instance of a clever recipe conceit that would become popular toward the end of the century. "To Make Rasberrie Suger to Drink w^th Tea," page 151, outlines sugar infused with raspberry juice and then dried. Presumably it was used to sweeten tea in lieu of plain sugar, a lovely idea. Also, there are four recipes for the fascinating, very tricky confection called "clear cakes" on page 135. 

To access the PDF containing the digital images of this book, click on the link beneath the thumbnail image in the library record.