Cookbook of Anne Williams [manuscript], circa 1690

Cookbook of Anne Williams [manuscript], circa 1690

Halkyn, Wales, circa 1690.

1 item ; 200 x 160 x 22 mm

Great Britain -- Wales -- Halkyn, -- production place.

272834 MS

From dealer's description: "[WILLIAMS, Anne] Welsh 17th-century manuscript book of culinary recipes and remedies. [Halkyn, Wales. Circa 1690]. Quarto (text block measures 200 x 160 x 22 mm). Approximately 140 text pages on 113 leaves. Contemporary vellum, heavily rubbed and worn, lacking backstrip, paper softened and frayed at edges, some loose pages, preserved in modern marbled paper solander box. Watermark: foolscap, five-pointed collar, letter four above three roundels above. Provenance: ink inscription to front endpaper reads “Anne Williams: 1690. my dear frend that is now and ever will be from this time for the and forever amen. In time.” Beneath this in pencil: “Anne Clough Spinster”. At the opposite end the are two inscriptions by “Hugh Roberts” and two by “Ann Williams” the latter of which adds “of Halkin” (i.e. Halkyn, a small village in Flintshire, Wales). Judging from the recipes and the names mentioned in this manuscript, Anne Williams was an affluent and well-connected woman who mixed with local gentry families. Indeed, many of her connections, from whatever rung of society, can be mapped to a small area around the village of Halkyn, Flintshire in Wales. CONNECTIONS The Williams family are connected by marriage to the Thelwalls, Wynns, Conways, Mostyns, and the Salusburys via the Mostyns, all of whom are mentioned in this manuscript. The closest connection is “to dry Cherrys my sister Thellwalls way” (f8v), but we do not know whether they were sisters or sisters in law. A reference occurs on f2r, “To make a Cake Lady Salusburys way”: the Salusburys’ family seat, Lleweni Hall, is approximately 11 miles from Halkyn. The connections go deeper elsewhere. For example, “Miss Conway of Stoughton’s” (f89r) and the eponymous “Stoughtons Bitters”(f54r), refer to Stoughton Hall, around five miles from Halkyn. The Conways owned this estate for several generations before they got into financial difficulties and were forced to sell Stoughton Hall in 1732. Anne’s extended family also includes “Deare Cos Alice Winn”, who contributes a recipe for “spice cake” on “febryary ye 22nd 1701” (f33r), and “Cosen Mary Mostyn” (f52r), who offers one for “Cowslip Wine”. Later in the book, “Cosen Mary” contributes “To Pickle Cabbage called by some when pickled Labba de Loy – 1752 – Given by the Dutches of Roxborough to her Brother Sir Thomas Mostyn in Flintshire” (opp f83r); Sir Thomas Mostyn, 4th Baronet (1704-1758), lived at the family seat of Plas Mostyn, roughly nine miles from Halkyn. He had some 12 siblings, one of whom was Mary who provided the recipe. Another reference to Anne’s wider family is appended to a remedy “for the stone or Grauel” (f46r) which was “aproued by my nephew Madockes of bronyou” – probably Bryniau, a village situated 12 miles from Halkyn. While all these references nestle our scribe into a family network that stays close to Halkyn, we have not identified exactly which Anne Williams it was who compiled this manuscript. There were several women in families whose first name was Anne, and the name Williams preceding or following marriage1. However, the name “Anne Clough” beneath Anne Williams’ inscription mentioned above is provides a useful line of inquiry; and indeed, the marriage of Anna Williams of Halkyn to Hugh Clough of Henllan (which was then also in the county of Flintshire) is recorded in 17032. Another record shows that Anna Williams was buried at Halkyn 28 June 17303. If these two records are one and the same person, they give us a best guess as to our scribe’s identity. Among the attributions to friends and acquaintances, frequent mention is made to “Mary Bennit” who knows how to “Preserve Gooseberryes” (f14r), and “Whip Sillibubs” (f16v), as well as other goodies such as “very good Cakes”, several others refer to “M B” (probably Mary Bennett). Another friendship affirmed through food is with “my Deare friend Catherine Jones” who “was pleased to giue me these receates” (f16r). Among the remedies, a “Mr Perkins” has a “Plaster for legs that are swolne or sore” (f25r), “Sr Ed: lloyd” has a “good & safe purge for ye dropsey” which includes the commendation “Bettony taken Every way is mighty good & wholesome”. A brief history of a remedy is described in the lengthily titled “A Soueraigne watter of Doctor Chambers which he long used and therwith did many cures and keept it secret till a little before his Death, and then ye Bishop of Canterbury gott it in writing” (opp f103v) and the ubiquitous “The Ladie Allens Water” (f24r), and “Lucatelas Balsam” (f111v) both make an appearance. CONTRIBUTORS There are some 190 culinary recipes and 65 remedies ranging from a few lines to full pages of detailed notes. The manuscript was commenced circa 1690. Anne Williams seems to have been the main contributor, with upwards of 130 culinary recipes, and about 10 remedies from the last decade of the 17th century through to the first decades of the 18th (a recipe on f31 is dated 1701, and the subsequent recipes appear to have been written around that time). Anne is joined by two early 18th-century hands who add most of the remaining recipes and remedies, but a fourth, neat cursive hand has added a few in the 1750s. The latter references the same families, so we assume that all the scribes were from Anne Williams’ household or her descendants. The text is arranged in the conventional dos-a-dos format of recipes at one end and remedies at the other (with spill over from each). INGREDIENTS Ingredients cover a wide range of sources, from components gathered locally to those shipped in from overseas. They include herbs and spices (“Nutmeg”, “oringado”, “Liquorish”, “Take Balme Cowslips or what hearbes or what flowers you like”, “best ginger punn’d very small”), fruit (“Raisons”, “oring”, “lemon”, straberyes mullberies or Rasberries ye last is the best” (f7r), “Peach & Nectarine Fritters”), and meat and fish (“raw veale a pound & halfe of beife suett”, “a Red Hearing if lent or else Backen does well”). But perhaps the most frequently used ingredient is something that, at the time of compilation was still a relatively expensive commodity: “Sugr”, “fine Loafe sugar”, “Shuger”, “suger”, and so on. How much did people know, or even care, about where sugar came from or the appalling conditions under which it was grown? It’s difficult to say with certainty, but it may well have been given the level of consideration many of us in the modern era devote to how our clothes are manufactured. USEABILITY One of the most striking features of the manuscript is its clarity and useability. Early modern recipe books are often written like a series of aide-memoires with the gaps in instructions easily filled by the experience and knowledge of the cook. But this volume contains unusually explanatory notes and descriptive prose, giving rise to some interesting analogies. Some are straightforward (“mingle all together and make it up in round balls of ye biggness of an apple or an Egg” (f3r), “cutt it in bitts Eyther licke dice or dyamond” (f4v)), while others, though still admirably clear, are more unexpected. In this example, she likens the mesh texture of pastry to a portcullis: “put it into a dish upon a sheete of puff past The fassion of a perculles & ye Materiall of ye pudding will rise up to ye past & fill up ye chinkes” (f4r). Similarly, the language for cooking times and temperatures ranges from the precise to the poetic: in the recipe “To preserve Codlings” she makes the casual-sounding suggestion that one heat “ouer the fire Leysurely”; and when making “Court Cakes” the cook is instructed to “beate all these with yr hands full to houres till it begin to eye and Look as white as snow”, but the temperate and timing are captured in the instruction to “bake ym in a pritty sharp ouen”, after which “box ym up for yr use sett ym indifferent neare ye fire and they will keep a whole yeare” (f35r). In other cases, timing is given more precisely (“two howers will back it this is aproued by Mrs Ester Jones” (f39r); and in others again, exactitude mixes with ambiguity, as in the instructions to “to euery pund of Damsons a pound of Suger [...] put a pritty deale of the suger in the pann” (f11r). At times, the directions are so thorough that one wonders whether a method is being explained to someone else: for example, when they say “Take two pound of ye fattest backen cutt of all ye leane & rastiness whatsoeuer scrape it all wth. a knife till it come to ye substance of butter, as yu scrape itt put it into faire water” (f4r), or “To Coller Pigg Cut your Pigg downe the backe and belly and take out all the bones then take the head and Cutt off the nose and wash itt to or three times in faire water and Lay it in water two or three hours to take if blood [...] take sweet herbs some winter sauory a little sage sweet marjoram [...] nutmegg a few cloues […] strew it altogether all ouer yr Pigg and Roule up yr Collers as hard as possible [...]” (f25v). Not only could these recipes be followed by most readers, but evidence abounds that they have been well used. For example, “To make Gingerbread” (f15v) has been crossed out entirely, and the method of “Preserving Goosbereys Green and whole” (f9r) turned out not to be “The best way” after all as it, too, has been struck through. Even more emphatically, “To make a Carway Cake” has been both crossed out and annotated “ys is not a good reseet” (f17r). Others have been adapted or amended: “A Receipt to make Quince Marmalet” has two lines crossed out (“& the rest of the suger you may put in when you mixe itt for Marmalet, if”) and replaced in the margin with the following instructions: “To Every pint of liquor yu must add half a pound of suger more yn at first this ^do when yu boile oven it”. The recipe ends with a note, both helpful and parsimonious, suggesting that “if you please you may keepe the seedes to boile in water for women that haue sore Niples” (f10r). Like many of the best examples of early-modern culinary collections, this heavily used and widely referenced manuscript looks as much outward to its owner’s network of acquaintances and family as it does inward."

Ordered from Dean Cooke Rare Books ltd. D9622, 2023-03-24, from Catalogue no. four, item #21, Ref. 8135

Purchase made possible by The B. F. Saul Rare Book Acquisitions Fund.

272834