Manuscript recipe book of two Irish sisters [manuscript], 1720.
1720
Items
Details
Title
Manuscript recipe book of two Irish sisters [manuscript], 1720.
Created/published
Ireland, 1720.
Description
152 p.
Associated name
Strangman, Elizabeth.
Strangman, Sarah.
Strangman, Sarah.
Note
This is a PRELIMINARY RECORD. It may contain incorrect information. The "FAST ACC" number is a temporary call number. Please email catalog@folger.edu for assistance.
Condition
With 3 loose modern items at front.
Genre/form
Manuscripts (documents)
Cookbooks.
Cookbooks.
Place of creation/publication
Ireland.
Item Details
Call number
FAST ACC 272498
Folger-specific note
Ordered from Lucius Books, D9507, 2021-08-09, Transatlatntic Book Fair, July 22-27, 2021 From dealer's description: "Original manuscript in ink. 152pp. of text with no blanks, containing around 200 culinary and medicinal recipes/receipts. Contemporary card covers in later patterned paper dustwrapper with manuscript paper title label to the upper panel. Three leaves torn out at the rear, the bottom half of pp.14/15 excised, and potentially lacking a couple of leaves at the beginning. The contents with cracking to the hinges (although still secure), a little worming to the gutter of pp.116-152 (affecting a few words only), the first page somewhat loose and with a little chipping to the edges, and expected occasional spots and splashes to a number of pages, are otherwise in good order. An appealing, unsophisticated example. A superb manuscript recipe book, created between the 1720s and 1750s by two sisters from a Quaker family living in Mountmellick, County Laois, Ireland. Carefully constructed and immensely detailed, the book includes around 200 recipes for a wide variety of meat and fish dishes (from "Westphalian Ham" to "Potted Herrings", with some, like the "Calves Head Hash", being particularly hands-on: "cleave the head and pull out the eyes"); numerous puddings and cakes, encompassing cheese cakes, gingerbread, "Apple Puffs", the marvellously-named "Quaking Pudding" ("mingle it so well that there be no lumps in it" and to "serve it up...stick some blanched allmonds upon it if you please"), and the curious "Hedgehog" pudding, made to resemble the creature (under the recipe another hand has simply written "that is famous"); various biscuits, soups, "French Bread" and "Cream Cheese"; jams and preserves ("Orange Jelly: take 6 civil [sic] oranges free from any black spots"), pickles (from cucumbers to mangoes); and a wide range of drinks (almost entirely alcoholic, even the seemingly innocent "Barbadoes Water", which, it turns out, is a type of rum). It also features an extensive range of remedies for ailments including dropsy, the "King's Evil", smallpox, a "mad dog's bite", as well as a curative "syrup of snails" ("Take 2 quarts of snails, pound them fine, shells & all"), as well as a few other additions, such as a list of the names of cherry trees brought from Dublin on 30th November 1732 ("White Hart next to Garden Doores" etc). Inflected with contemporary Irish dialect throughout, some entries specifically reference the book's geography, such as a recipe explaining "the way Dollords town drink is brued [sic]" (Dollards being an area just outside of Dublin), and another referring to the prominent Dublin banker and Quaker, Joseph Fade: "a receipt for the Bloody Flux which has been practised with good success by Mr. Joseph Fade, an eminent Quaker". Mountmellick itself was founded by English Quaker émigrés in the 1650s, and became an important centre for Quaker activity. The book's owner, Sarah Strangman (1706- 1772), was born in the town, marrying fellow-Quaker John Ridgway (1699-1748) in 1725. Her sister, Elizabeth Strangman (1718-1754), who contributes heavily to the book, married John's brother, Henry Ridgway, in 1743. Although the contents appear to be written by more than two hands, Sarah and Elizabeth are clearly its main authors. Pleasingly, and unusually, the book also contains interaction and commentary between the contributors, most amusingly demonstrated by Elizabeth's declaration that one recipe was "written with a pen I made myself", followed by a sarcastic addition seemingly by her sister, translating the true intent of Elizabeth's statement in order to burst its pomposity: "just to let you know that I can make a pen", with a further epithet added beside Elizabeth's name: "a famous girl indeed". Other female friends and family members are also represented in the book, including "Aunt Petticrew" (likely their sister-in-law's mother, Hannah Petticrew (née Hoope, 1693- 1763)), whose recipe for "curran wine" is faithfully recorded by Elizabeth. A wonderful example of its type, the Strangman sisters' book provides a fascinating insight into the domestic and culinary lives of two young Quaker women in early eighteenth-century Ireland."
Folger accession
272498