Recipe Book, 18th and 19th Century

Receipt book [probably Irish], containing a mixture of culinary, medical, veterinary and household recipes in a number of different hands. Sporadic dated material in the volume indicates that the majority of contents were entered between c.1780 and c.1814. The creators are not known: this volume has passed through many hands and had various authors.

Contents are not separated by type of receipt, however the first 15 folios are mainly medical receipts and the remainder up to f.154v are culinary and household with the odd medical receipt on f.80r, f.81r and f.124r. The contents of ff.155r-176v are a mixture of medical, culinary and household receipts. Receipts have been entered from the 'reverse' of the volume starting at f.170r and ending at f.156v .

The culinary receipts are dominated by ones for cakes, puddings, creams and jellies and many are included several times, with variations and in different hands, notably, for example, receipts for plum cake. As well as plums, there are several receipts for lemon cakes, cream cheeses, almond pastries, oysters and various pickles (including a receipt for Indian pickles "how to pickle colliflowers, cabbages, raddish, kidney beans, asparagus, &c" on f.116r).

Medical receipts include powders and ointments for sore breasts and whooping cough, "The famous American rec't for the Rhuematism", f.9v, a receipt to cure of the bite of a mad dog "brought by Sir George Cobb Bart.", f.13v, and a receipt for treating worms, f.12r.

Veterinary receipts include "Flood The coachmans rec't for a horse cough", f.159, a receipt "Mrs Go[v]an says is invaluable to farmers, for cattle that has the Red or Bad Water, w'ch generally happens in wet seasons...", f.170v, "A cow spice, proper for cattle that languish", f.171v, and "How to treat a Horse when seized w'th a cholic" (loose receipt at front of volume).

Household receipts are near the end of the volume, from f.155r onwards, and include one on that page for cleaning mahogany tables by Mrs [Casper] Seymour, and one on f.164v for "making paste for papring rooms."

Several receipts have the name of the author at the beginning or the end, for example, Mrs Morris, Mrs Lindon, "old Mrs Cooper", Mrs Barton, Mrs Vernon, "Mrs Hamilton of Loy", Dr Berkley, Mrs Worsop, Mrs Holmes, Mrs J Hamilton, Lady Staples, Mrs A Lindsay, Dr Johnson of Beverley.

The volume also contains "an inventory of the goods of this house" being a list of the kitchen equipment and a list of linen, ff.82v-83r, and "an account of china sold to the Bishop", f.92r.

Copied extracts from three chapters of an unidentified book or treatise is contained on ff.16r-34v. It appears to be a discussion of faith and justification in the context of the Jews and the Gentiles and notably Abraham. The main language is English, with some sentences and words in Latin and Greek. It includes the sub-titles "Concerning justification by faith", f.24v, and "The application of Abraham's justification by faith to us", f.34v.

There are several indications in the volume that it hails from Ireland or at least that some of its owners lived in Ireland. These are: loose items at the front of the volume - part of an advertising bill supplying addresses in Omagh, a small scrap of paper with 'C. Tyrone' printed on it and a scrap of paper with a Dublin and Belfast TPO (travelling post office) postmark; a radical cure for scurvy "taken out of the Belfast Paper Jan 1783", f.13r; a loose newspaper cutting (between ff.168v and 169r) of a recipe on the reverse of which is an announcement of the publication in Dublin of An historical guide to ancient and modern Dublin by Rev. G N Wright.

In English,with some Latin and Greek.