Manuscript Location

Folger Shakespeare Library, Manuscripts

Place of Origin

England

Date of Composition

1684

Description

This cookbook of 149 leaves (approximately 275 written pages) is inscribed "Elizabeth Fowler her Book 1684." The book contains culinary recipes through leaf 97r, all of which appear to be in the inscriber's hand, although the mood of the hand varies considerably, especially after leaf 63. Between leaves 98v and 140r are sermons in different hands, several delivered by Mr. Conway, Mr. Fuler, Mr. Shield, Mr. Smyth, and Mr Fowler; the last gave a lecture in Tedbury [probably Tetbury, Gloucestershire] on September 20, 1692. Two poems appear on leaves 125v and 149. A few medical recipes have been inserted in a messy hand on leaf 2r, and a medicinal "Sirop of Snailes" is outlined on leaf 54v.

This book is unusually strong in recipes for meat and poultry dishes, some three dozen altogether, comprising not only the usual collops, hashes, and fricasees but also stews, roasts, and various uncommon preparations. Among the last are "To Make Sprige Garden Beef" (spring garden, leaf 3v), a boned beef rib marinated overnight in red wine and spices, then rolled and baked and served 'garnished' with "flowers and leaves as you Fancy." There is also "To Make Ballonia of Beefe" (leaf 4v), which entails pounding beef rump "to a perfect paste" with spices, salt, red wine, and cochineal (to make the paste red) and then packing the paste in a pot with alternating layers of beef "dubbin" (fat). After baking, the "gravy" is poured out and replaced with butter, and the "ballonia" is served cold from the pot, cut in thin slices and accompanied with mustard. "To Make a Spread Eagle" (leaf 32v) is a fatted chicken, boned, pounded, and stuffed back into its skin with barberries, spices, and sugar, then baked and served with a squeeze of sour orange juice. To accompany the meats there is a lengthy roster of sauces: two for roasted chicken or partridge, three for capon, one for roasted pig, and one for boiled chicken on leaves 32v-35r, and one each for boiled fish and wild duck on leaf 57v. There are also some twenty recipes for meat, fowl, and fish pies, including an unusual recipe for a "Pasty of Bullocks Cheeks" (leaf 51r), as well as recipes for preserved meats, "the best sassages that ever was eat" (actually sausage patties, not links, similar to Oxford Kates; leaf 14r), and "the best sort of Stewed broth" (leaf 27r), which is essentially the favorite Christmas soup of beef, bread, and dried fruits more commonly known as "plum broth" or "plum pottage."

Recipes for fruit preserves, fruit confectionary, and fruit and flower syrups are sprinkled throughout but are particularly prevalent in the last third of the book, totaling at least fifty. There are also a fair number of recipes for dessert creams, as well as some for small dessert cakes and biskets and for sweet wines and waters. Particularly noteworthy is the lengthy memorandum on sugar "heights" (stages) written on leaves 39r-41r. The book also includes several recipes for confections, which are unusual in manuscript, including "Eggs and Bacon" (leaf 61r), a whimsical banqueting conceit that reproduced the aforesaid in colored marzipan paste.

An odd and uncommon recipe titled "How to make your Hops of gooseberries," presumably for beer making, is written on leaf 86v.