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This recipe book entitled “Cooke Family” [1] was crafted by multiple members of the Cooke Family between 1777 and 1782. While there is no specific author identified, we know that there were several different family members which shared and contributed to this receipt book over time (1777-1782) because the handwriting changes throughout the course of the book. In addition, a few receipts include the different names of the authors in their titles, for example “Mrs Crows receipt to mend China”[1]. The recipes range from cooking recipes, to medicinal recipes, as well as more functional receipts for everyday needs which demonstartes that the book was clearly meant to be used as authors added practical recipes as they came across them and needed them in everyday life. The book also includes a recipe which copies a direct extract from the 'Dispensatory of the Royal College of Physicians of London, 5th edition, 1773' [2] (which had already been published at that time) which alludes to the fact that the family was well connected in the academic side of medicine in addition to their understanding of homeopathic family cures. This addition also connects to the idea that “informal science has functioned in parallel to the goings-on in the academy,"[3] to give the Cooke women a space to practice their skill and knowledge. The well rounded nature of this receipt book demonstrates the high knowledge, and presumably class, of the Cooke Family, as well as how close the family was to have been able to keep this book in such condition over the years.
The wide range of recipes in this book come with a suprising lack of notes and messages in side margins, which are typical to other recipe books of this time, in which the Cooke family did not give details about the authors of each recipe and the efficacy of the recipes, yet the extensive recipes themselves with multitudes of subject matters “underlines the value (monetary and otherwise) placed upon recipe books both as material objects and as collections of knowledge." [3] Through the compiling of such interesting recipes and procedures, one is able to understand the emphasis of significance which the Cooke family placed on their, in a sense, family heirloom. [3] Similarly, what is so compelling about this book is how the only names mentioned are females, which challenges the notion that “the household speaks with one voice (and that voice the master’s).” [4] This idea is challenged by the Cooke recipe book as the women's recipes demonstrate their dominnace of household knowlegde and domestic medicine without the contributions or ideas of men. Where some scholars emphasize how men were sometimes invested in and would tend to control the home and therefore production of recipe books, the Cooke women’s talents and role in the home shows their extensive knowledge, independence, and agecny in the domestic sphere. This book serves to uncover a larger conversation about the role of receipt books in the eighteenth century.
[1] Unknown author. Cooke Family. 1777-1782, Shelfmark MS.1788, Courtesy of the Wellcome Library, London.
[2] Pemberton, H. (1773). The Dispensatory of the Royal College of Physicians. London.
[3]Long, Elaine. “Collecting Knowledge for the Family: Recipes, Gender and Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern English Household,” 86.
[4] Amanda Vickery, “Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England” (Yale University Press, 2010).
To make an oringe pudding
Cover your dish with a sheet of puff
Past[e], put two ounces of preserved oringe
and sittron peel in thin Slices all of an
equal length and [words off page]
then beat ten eggs Leaving out all the
whites, put to your eggs half a pound of
Duble refined sugar beat fine, two
Spoonful of oringe flower water-
three quarters of a pound of melted
butter, beat it well together and
pour it into the Dish upon the oringe
and sittron as it sticks, and and sift
Duble refind sugar upon it as you
put it into the oven, half an hour
will bake it-
To Salt hams
Let the hams hang three Days before you
Salt them then rub them over with
vinegar before the fire, mix three
quarters of a pound of the Coarsest
Sugar three ounces of salt petre, near
a quarter of a pound of a peck of Common salt
altogether, and rub the hams very well
with it still keeping them by the fire
then Lay the hams with the fleshy part
upwards, and Lay all the salt upon them,
that you cannot rub in after one Day,
then rub them over every Day with the
Brine, for nine or ten Days together,
this quantity of things Does for hams
of 12 or 14 pound weight if they are
Larger more of every thing must be
added, let them hang in a Chimney
where wood is burnt but take Care
they Dont hang too near the fire,-
To make Cowslip Wine-
take 25 Gallons of water and half
a hundred weight of sugar, boyle [t]hem
together two hours scuming [stirring] it all the time
Let it stand still til blood warm, then
put into it a bushell and half of
Cowslip fresh pick't, and half a pint
of new yeast Lett it stand four or five
Days, stirring it 3 or 4 times every Day
then put to it sixty Lemons slices, with
the yellow part of the peel thin pared,
pull of the white part before you slice
them and throw it away, put it into a
vessel together, with the cowslips
and Lemons, stop it Down Close, when
it has Done nothing, Let it stand three
months thin bottle it off-
To make oringe or Lemon water-
Take three Gallon of the beer Bench
Brandy and the peel of a hundred
sevill orignes paired very thin, put your
brandy and oringe peal into a Deep
earthen pott Covered down close, and
Lett it Steep for three or four Days
then still it in a Limbeck, and divide
your Brandy and peel to be stilled at
four several times, adding to [words out of scan]
Still three or four quarts of Spring
water, the intent of the water is to
beer the brandy from wasteing too quick,
in the time of Distilling, be sure to Lett
three bottles run of in every still, that
you may have twelve in the whole
quantity, then mix your Distilled water
altogether, and let it Stand till the
Fire is out, then take two pounds of
Duble refined sugar and two quarts
of Spring water and boyle it to a
sirup and pour into your oringe
water boyling hott, Cover it Close and
Lett it stand till next Day, then run
it through a jelly Bag or fine hollowed
bag for fear of any Drugs settleing
at the Bottom, then bottle it up, -
For a broken Shin
take powder of myrh and infuse it in [warm]
Clarett, and wash the part very well, then
Ssrens on some of the powder of myth
and Let it Dry on, keep it from rubing
off, and as the skins Comes on the
myth will peel of it self-
Mrs Crows receipt to mend China
Take the Litharge of Gold, Bole
armoniack, red and white Lead of each
half an ounce, mix them in five ounces
of hott Lime, beat them small and Dust
them through a thin cloath or sier-
keep this powder in a bottle by itself-
For the oyle
Take the white of three eggs and beat them
to an oyle, take of the broth, and mix
it with fifteen Drops of Linseed oyle
nine drops of the oyle of spike, put
this into a bottle and let it stand a
month before it is used.
To use it
rub it on the shards of your broken
china very well till it is thoroughly
wet then dust your powder on it
and Join it setting it before the fire
till it is dry, the ingredients will
keep for years if well stored
To make good fish sauce-
Take a pint of good gravy or
very strong broth, put to it two or
three anchovies well worked, two onions
skinned, some white wine, some nutmeg
and whole pepper boyle them well, strain
them, and mix it into it shrimps or oysters
and thick it with flower and a bit
of butter and some juice of
Lemons and peele share small
To Stew Carp-
After your fish is stripped and wiped well
from the net, take a quart of carrot
and a pint of varjuice and then lay
in the fish, and fill it up with water
till it just covers the fish, put in a
headfull of salt two raw of ginger
some whole pepper a bunch of sweet
herbs an onion shred six anchovies
some lemon peel, put the fish into
the liquor two hours before it’s set
upon the fire, then let them boyle
very gently close covered, taking
them of the fire non and then in the boiling-
for the sauce for the carp
take almost a pint of carrots two
onions a flake of mace some
nutmeg and ginger and whole peper
lemon peel and some anchovies, boyle
a good while and set them by, and
when your fish is enough, take and put to your sauce a pint of the
fish liquor, Boyle it altogether
then strain it and thicken it with
yolks of eggs and butter or with
flower put into your sauce oysters and shrimp-
More withins receipt for Raison wine
one and of mallige, Raison to a
quart of spring water which must
be boyled and and steamed well, and when
are warm put to the Raisons which
Be ready nickt and chopt, and so let
it work ten days stirring if 3 or 4
times a days, then to squeeze the raisons
out and put it in the barrel the
longer tis kept the better ---
To make wiggs ---
take a quarter of a peck of flower
a pound of batter, rub the butter in
the flower very small, and a pound of
sugar, half an ounce of Caraway
seeds, mix it with the flower and wet
it with a quart of new milk warmed
and a pinto of new ale yeast, let it
lye before the fire to rise and hour or
more, make them into what bigness you
please-
a receipt to make the spice powder
Take two ounces of the powder of liquorice,
two ounces of beaten ginger and four
ounces of double refined sugar beaten,
let all those be shifted through a hair
sive, (not too fine) then put in four
ounces of the fileings of unprepared steel
and two ounces of grated nutmegs, cloves
and mace finely beaten, of each half an
ounce, mix those all together, and take as
much as will lye upon a shilling, fasting
in the morning, be as much as four a
clock in the afternoon, it must be
took for a month together, when the
patient is far gone in the distemper, they must
be sure to eat no milk nor any thing
that is salt, or windy while this medicine
is taking, are moderate exercise
Amanda Vickery, “Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England” (Yale University Press, 2010).
Dictionary by Merriam-Webster: America's most-trusted online dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved September 27, 2020, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/
Long, Elaine. “Collecting Knowledge for the Family: Recipes, Gender and Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern English Household.” Centaurus 55 (2013): 81-103.
National Archives, T. (2004, December 29). The National Archives - Palaeography. Retrieved September 27, 2020, from https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
Unknown author. Cooke Family. 1777-1782, Shelfmark MS.1788, Courtesy of the Wellcome Library, London.