Manuscript Location

Winterthur Library, Quaker and Special Collections

Place of Origin

United States ➔ Virginia ➔ New Market

Date of Composition

1847

Description

The inscription on the front cover of this book reads, "Recipe Book, July 27, 1847, Mrs. M. E. Williamson." Martha Emeline White Williamson (1826-1896) was married to Major Jacob D. Williamson (1818-1875). She was born in Rockingham County, the daughter of Mary and Matthew White. She died in New Market, Virginia.

The volume comprises eight handwritten recipes for foods, four for medicines and cosmetics, and a pasted-in printed page containing four recipes by cookbook author Eliza Leslie, three for puddings and one for Indian Slap Jacks. The handwritten culinary recipes are: To make green sweet meats [sweet pickled melon rind], Tomato sauce [ketchup], Yellow pickle, French cake [yeast-raised pancakes, surprisingly], Waffels, Muffins, Marlborough Pudding, and Eve's Pudding [a boiled pudding with chopped apples and raisins]. About the last recipe the author writes: "I have copied the receipt, but in making the pudding vary it somewhat. The butter I cream with the flour - as in making cake - indeed mix it as I would cake. There are rather too many apples called for and not quite enough raisins. I put in 3/4 of a pound of stoned raisins & a little over 1/4 of a pound of apples."

To view digital images of this book, click on the link in the library catalog under "Multimedia," and then click on "1800s."