Cookery Books: 18th Cent.
Cookery-Books 18th Cent.
By Lisa Highet and Julia Barrier
See embedded digital recipe book at the bottom of this page
The bolded words in the text are the words/phrases which were not clear to us. We have put our interpretations of what the words could mean in brackets []
The book we chose to transcribe for this assignment is entitled, Cookery-books 18th century. This book, which was written sometime between 1775 and 1800 according to the Wellcome library’s website, contains different recipes for dishes likely intended for a large family (1). Most of the recipes we transcribed indicated that they were seasonal (for instance used apples which were only available in the fall). The library’s notes on the book include that the first 127 pages were written by the same person (as they contain the same handwriting) (2). However, the handwriting differs towards the end of the book and at the index at the beginning of it (wellcome library). Therefore, one can assume that this recipe book was likely passed down in a family as was custom in early modern Europe. The importance of family to recipe book and household knowledge in general can be seen in Elaine Leong’s text, “Collecting Knowledge for the Family: Recipes, Gender and Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern English Household” when she describes the importance of the “transmission of household recipe books” across generations (3). The tradition of passing down recipe books from generation to generation highlights how they were important texts in early modern households because they not only held significant family recipes, but could also be viewed as a dialogue between different generations of the family. This allowed for the culture and taste of different generations to be passed down across time, serving as a historical record of what they ate and the ingredients that were at hand.
Additionally, it is also important to note that recipe books can help historians understand the culture and social standing of the family who wrote it. The importance of recipe books to the historical record is explored in Regina Sexton’s text, “Food and Culinary Cultures in Pre Famine Ireland”. In this text, Sexton states that she drew most of her sources from “the evidence of estate papers and manuscript receipt (recipe) collections” in order to illustrate “ how cookery at the upper echelons of Irish society was sophisticated, refined and closely aligned to the norms of British culinary culture” (4). Ultimately, although the Wellcome library did not give us ample information on our recipe book, its content is useful for the historical record as they are an account of what people ate, how they prepared it, and what food was available to them in late 1700s Europe.
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Veal Cutlets
Take a neck of veal, cut the long bones down from one another into chops as their as you can, eat them flat with a cleaver, season them with some mace, pepper, nutmeg, salt, and some Lemmon Peal cut small, drudge them over with flour of rice; and fry them very brown in fresh butter, while this is doing, beat the yokes of three eggs, putting now a spoonful of white wine among them, and clean your pan , put in it half a pint of white wine, a few oysters, some mushrooms, a little lemmon peal, let them boil, then put in the cutlets and just as you take it off the fire, stir in the yokes of eggs, toss it well together til it thickens, then dish up your cutlets, and pour on your sauce- garnish with mushrooms & shredded lemmon.
To pickle mushrooms
Gather your mushrooms in the morning as soon as possible after they are out of the ground (for one that is round and unopened [crossed out word] is worth five that is opened if you gather any that is opened let them be such as are reddish in the guills for those that have white guills[gills] are not good having gathered them put them into water where they are all done take them out and put them into a sauce pan then
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Put to them a good quantity of salt, whole pepper, cloves, mace, and nutmeg quartered, let them boil in their oven liquor a quarter of an hour with a quick fire then take them off the fire and pass them thro’ a colander let them stand till they are cold put all the spice that was used in the boiling, to one half white wine and the other half white wine vinegar, some salt and a few bay leaves, then give them a boil or two, there must be liquor enough to cover them, and when they are co^old put a spoonful or two of oyl on the top to keep them- you must change bthe liquer once a month
To Make a Rice Pudding
Set a pint of cream over the fire, and put into it three spoonfuls of the flower of mice, stir it, and when it is pretty thick put it into a pan, and put into it a pound of fresh butter, stir it ‘til it is almost cold then add to it a graded nutmeg, a little salt, some liquor a little sack, the yokes of five eggs, stir it well together and put some puffpaste in the bottom of the dish, pour it in an, have well beat it
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To Make Mrs. Lyndon’s Best Saffron Cake
Take twelve quarts of flowers anf four pounds of butter 24 eggs, a pint of milk, a quart of barm, a pound and a half of sifted sugar -two ounces of carraways seeds and a quarter of an ounce of saffron, or as much more as you please, dry the flower before the fire and while it is warm rub it in the butter extadinoardinary well, till there is not the least lump, then rub your other jug with them, still keeping it warm before the fire, the thro’ in your carrarway seeds, then beat your eggs the yolks, and whites apart, the whites till they come to a cord, you must take the saffron over night and tear it asunder, and dry it in a paper before the fire, with after the heat still burning, and when it is crisp’d , make it into a very fine powder, with the point of a knife on paper steep it all night in a pint of new milk-when you have all your stuff ready to mix, beat the saffron and milk with the yolks of the eggs, and set them over the fire till they are blood warm-make a convenient hole in the flour and pour it in- then put to it the barm and whilest you are mixing them-put in the whites of the eggs which must be kept still stirring, best the froth should fall, before you mix it with the flour, work all well together, and set them before the fire, to rise for an hour and a half, then make them unpin what bigness you please and
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and beat them - be sure to prick them in several places to the bottom and dont let the oven be too hot at the bottom
To Make a French Barley Pudding
Take a quart of cream and put to it the eggs - well beaten, and rub three of the whites -season with Seg? And nutmeg, a little salt, orange flower water a pound of melted butter- then put to it six hand-fulls of french barley that has been boild tender in milk Butter a dish and put it in and leave it-it must stand as long as a venison pastry, and it will be good
To Make Rice Pancakes
Take a quart of cream and three spoon fulls of the Flower of Rice, boil them till they are as thick as pap as it boils stir in half a pound of butter, and nutmeg grated, then pour it out into a pan and when it is cold, put in 3 or 4 spoonfuls of flower, a little salt, some seg?, 9 eggs well beaten -mix them all well togeth fry them in a little pan, with a small piece of butter serve them up 4 or 5 in a dish.
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To Stew Apples
Take a quart of water, a pound of double refined sugar-beaten fine boil and skim it put into it a pound of the largest and clearest pippins, peared and cut in halves and cored, let them boil over covered with a continual froth till they be as tender and as clear as you would have them then put in the juice of 2 lemmons, a little peel cut the threads-let them stand 2 or 3 minutes after the lemmon is in them put them in a china dish, or server, they should be done two hours before used.
To Pickle Barberries
Take the water and colour it red with the worst of your barberries and put salt to it, make it strong enough to bear an egg- then set it over the fire, and let boil half an hour, skin it, and when cold, strain it over the barberries laying some-thing on them, to keep them in the liquor cover them with leather.
A Receipt for the Falling Sickness
Twist black cherry water 2 dly [secondly] Powder of the human skull 3 dly powder of catts [cats] blood 4thly the powder of biches liver - 5thly powder of ringo rorts 5thly the powder of a say.
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To Make a Summer Cream Cheese
Take 4 quarts of cream, set it on the fire, and when it is ready to boil put it into 62 quarts of strippings- and when it is cold (but not as cold as for other cheese) put rummet into it, when it comes cover it with a wet cloth and press it down to take out the whey- then lay a wet cloth in the fat and take up the curd without breaking lay it in your pott prefising it gently with your hands when the fat is full lay on it a slight weight at first it must be turned often into wet cloths after it has been turned 3 times, rub a little salt on each side-lay it between dry cloths that night-next day put them in fresh nettles to shift it every day in ten days ripe, pluck the nettles leaf by leaf the whole must not exceed a pound.
To Make a Winter Cream Cheese
Take 2 quarts of sweet thick cream, put to it 2 quarts of scalding water-add to that 10 quarts strippings just milk’d from the cow, and if the hot water makes it hotter than the milk, let it stand till it cool a little, then put in it a tea spoon of rummett- stir it about and cover it close and let it stand till it comes very well- then take it up with the skinning dish in thick slices ley them in your wheying cloth till its all out, then lye the cloth close about it and let it lye in the Whey.
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An Hover- Then take up the cloth by the corners and drain all the wheat from it. In (illegible) it from one side to another- When the wheat is all out lay it in a tull of cold water Then hover (illegible) in a cloth often the freed a little, and let the water in to cool it- then drain the water from it- Then open your cloth and shake a handful of salt among it the bred- have your cheese all ready with a wet cloth up on it. Put in your (illegible), wrap it up and press it with a weight of a quarter of an hundred for an hour. Then (illegible) in a fresh cloth will the last cunning at sight Then take a dry cloth and wrap it in- Rub it with salt and lap it up and put it in a (illegible) till morning, and if you think it wants more salt of following, give it more salt and put it in another dry cloth, and so let it stand until next day, and then wrap it up in a dry cloth, and turn it wiping it everyday and keeping it always close wrap up till ready for use- which will be in 3 or 4 weeks according as the weather grows hot or cold,
To make Puff Paste
Take a pound of flour and a pound of butter (illegible) them both into 3 parts. Put one mpack of the butter into (illegible) parts then work it up into a paste with some water then roll it out along the ways the thickness of half a part lay on some of your butter in pieces the (illegible) of a (illegible) all neath them, then throw some flour slightly over the Butter, and clap it down hard with your hand, then fold it up in three.
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Threefold and roll it out again this do bor times tell your butter and flour be all in, then roll it out for use__it’s a bit paste for taste and cheese castle.
To Make a Tart Paste’
Take six ounces of butter to a pound of flour, run it a little in the flour and work it into a thick paste and roll it out for tarts
To make Rais’n Paste
Take 3 quarts of flour and 1 pound of butter, put the butter into a skillet, with three pints of water- let it boyle- lay the flour on the table and make a (illegible) in the middle of it, skim off the butter with some of the water along with it- pour it into the flower and work it into a paste and when its cool raise it into (illegible).
To make the Italian Paste
Take half a pound of sug and half a pound of flour and let the sug be wet for pounded into soft it’s more than well together beat two whites of eggs very well to a troth then put a little water into them and make it into a stiff paste and let it out thin and lay it for half a pound.
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A pound of butter fresh in little pieces at stinkes rolling out throwing a little flour over the butter every time, and fold it up every time as you do the other pastes, then roll it out for use. This paste is fit for three cakes and five treats. Parts that are cut out in flour.
To Make Paistry Paste
Take a pound of butter to a pound and a half of flour divide both into three parts rubb one part of the butter into 2 parts of the flour. Then beat one egg very well and put as much water to it as will make into a paste. Then roll out an (illegible) thick and lay on the rest of the Butter in little pieces all over at three or four times, flowering over the butter, clapping it with your hand, fold it up into 3 folds and roll it out again just as you did the Puff Paste, but not so often we roll it out for use. If you make a large paste, you (illegible) every pound of flour and as many pounds and half of flour so many eggs and so many pounds of Butter-this paste is fit for any large pie that would take above an hours baking with meat or apples.
To Make Transparent Paste
Boil a pint of fair water with a piece of Gumarabee as big as a small nito, lift a thick part of borl away then draw half a pound of fresh butter thick as for sauce.
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Sauce, keep them on separate levels till they cool, then lay a pound of flour on a table then make a hole in the middle of it. Flour the water and butter and work it into a stiff paste and roll it out very thin put it into the pan mind to sprinkle a little flour over the bottom of the tart before you run in the sug which secures the bottoms then put one layer of (illegible) and sug at the top and so beat them half an hour.
To Frost Tarts
When they are sided, wet the sides and drudge (illegible) sug then with a drudging beat then wet the sug over with a brush and drudge more sug over them. Put them into the oven, wet the sug over before you put them into the oven.
To Make a Plum Cake
Take a pound of fresh flour and sith and dry threed a pound of local sug- blend and cut in then (illegible) a (illegible) of a pound of sweet almonds a larger nutmeg graded, half a (illegible) of a sack of brandy take...
Bibliography:
Leong, Elaine. “Collecting Knowledge for the Family: Recipes, Gender and Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern Household.” Centaurus 55 (2013): 81–103.
Sexton, Regina. “Food and Culinary Cultures in Pre-Famine Ireland.” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Archaeology, Culture, History, Literature 115C (2015): 257–306. https://doi.org/10.3318/priac.2015.115.10.
Unknown author, "Cookery-Books 18th cent", c. 1775-c.1800?, MS 1817, Courtesy of the Wellcome Library, London.