English culinary and medical recipe book, late17th/early 18th centuries

  • Blackett family
Date:
c.1680-c.1740
Reference:
MS.8450
  • Archives and manuscripts
  • Online

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Credit

English culinary and medical recipe book, late17th/early 18th centuries. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

About this work

Description

A fair copy recipe collection belonging to the Blackett family of Matfen Hall, Northumberland. The bulk of the contents consist of numbered recipes in a single later 17th century hand (ff.11-63v.) Entries are made in apparently random sequence but there are lists of contents at the front of the volume, arranged by category: 'cookery' (f.2), 'sweetmeats, syrrups, jellys, conserves, preserves, candys, creams, distilled and other waters, pickles, made wines, and other liquors' (ff.3-4v.), and 'physick and surgery' (ff.7-8).

Later entries have been added from f. 63 in a variety of late 17th and/or early 18th century hands.

There are relatively few authorities identified for the recipes, although later entries (f.65r. and v.) are ascribed to Sir Thomas Millington [1628-1704], and to 'Dr Witham' [presumably John Witham (fl.1755-1785) MD, of Durham].

At f.68 there is a recipe for a balsam pasted in, 'given me by Mr Pimodan, the King's Lieutenant of Toul, in Lorrain'.

Publication/Creation

c.1680-c.1740

Physical description

72 ff. (original pagination 1-115 and unnumbered) 1 volume: 355 x 230 mm. Original, blind-stamped pannelled binding, repaired and rebacked.

Contributors

Acquisition note

Purchased form C.R. Johnson Rare Book Collections, August 2006

Biographical note

The volume originally belonged to a member of the family or household of Sir Edward Blackett (c.1647-1718), 2nd Bt, of Hoppyland, County Durham. He was married three times and it is possible, though entirely speculative, that this compilation marks one of these unions, in view of the propensity of fair copy redactions of recipes to be produced on such occasions. We know that the main entries do not antedate 1680, as one of them (no.430) is entitled 'A receit for Sir Edward Blackett', who inherited the baronetcy in that year.

Ownership note

The volume was evidently inherited by Sir Edward Blackett (b.c.1710), 4th Bt, who married Anne, daughter and heiress of Oley Douglas of Matfen. There is a pencil note inside the front cover: 'from the library of Sir Charles Blackett, Baronet, of Matfen Hall, Northumberland'.

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Identifiers

Accession number

  • 1442