Manuscript Location

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library

Place of Origin

United States ➔ Virginia ➔ Lynchburg

Date of Composition

1852

Description

This extraordinary cookbook was written by Launcelot Minor Blackford (1837-1914) at the age of fifteen. The book is a clever, sardonic pastiche of a printed cookbook, complete with a hand-drawn frontispiece (showing a gory chicken-killing scene); a title page with faux publication data (1st American Edition, Lynchburg, published by Blackford and Bro, 1852); a faux publication entry "according to an act of Congress"; a bloviating preface acknowledging the wholly derivative nature of the work; and a dedication "to the numerous patrons of the culinary art in Hanover County, Va." The 97-page book opens with a gently satiric family dialogue about what to have for dinner. The rest of the book comprises recipes, loosely organized as cakes, meats, vegetables, puddings and pastry, breads, more puddings, pickles and liqueurs, and frozen desserts. The recipes, some of which seem to have been copied from print, are generally credible. There is an index at the end. The book contains numerous adroitly drawn illustrations, most of which are humorous, such as one accompanying a recipe for chicken fricassee, which shows chickens in fancy duds and is captioned "civilized poultry." The book also includes snatches of poetry and quotes from famous authors like Thomas Carlyle. The handwriting is handsome and legible throughout, if a bit sprawling toward the end of the book.

Lancelot Blackford was a son of William Blackford (1801-1864), a diplomat, newspaper editor, and banker, and Mary Berkeley Minor Blackford (1802-1896), an ardent abolitionist who was active in the American Colonization Society, a project to "repatriate" American blacks to Liberia. Despite his mother's anti-slavery sentiments, Launcelot served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, as did his three brothers, William, Charles, and Benjamin. After the war, Launcelot worked as a school teacher, becoming principal of the Episcopal High School, in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1870.

To see the digital images of this cookbook, click on the link above, which will bring you to the library finding aid for the Blackford Family Papers, and then scroll down to "Subseries 1.8. Volumes."