Manuscript cook book.
19th Century Manuscript Cookbook
[Cookbooks]. Busk, Mary H. Private Cook Book. New York; 1865-1928.
8vo.; marbled endpapers; brown leather boards; stamped in gilt and blind; with Busk’s initials “M.H.B” stamped on the upper cover; edgeworn.
Busk’s manuscript cookbook, halfway filled with 128 pp. of manuscript recipes and 47 pp. of recipes clipped from various printed sources and affixed to the pages, some loosely inserted. Signed by Busk and dated 1865 on the endpaper. Most of the recipes include the name of the place where the recipe was collected, from Staten Island, New York; Indian Spring; Aldenham Lodge, Hertfordshire; Birkenhead; Bar Harbor, Maine; and Chamonix, France. Busk not only includes recipes, but also includes tips for cleaning and maintaining kitchen and household appliances.
The cookbook includes more than half a century’s worth of recipes and household tips, tracing the culinary tastes and habits of an upper middle class family. The recipes are written narratively, in paragraph form; unlike modern cookbook recipes they are not preceded by a list of ingredients and their amounts followed by instructions. Busk’s first entry is for “Patties for soup” reads, “Any cold meat pounded and flavored with mace if white meat; and allspice if brown, and a little pepper and lemon peel. The crust must be thin and very good paste which before putting in the oven you egg over and sprinkle with vermicelli. Serve these on a napkin with clear soup.” A recipe for “Gumbo soup” from West Point in 1866 is also written similarly:
Cut a slice of ham in small pieces, a young chicken or turkey cut in joints and fried a nice brown with an onion and a spoonful or two of lard. These to be put into a covered pot with half a gallon of broth and stewed an hour or two very gently. Just before serving stir in gently half a table spoonful of “Sassafras filé” or powder and let it boil up well. In using ochra (sic) instead of file it must be put into the soup much earlier as it must be cooked very thoroughly. All must be quite soft and some boiled to rags. Oysters and tomatoes may be added with advantage.
Busk must have been an accomplished cook – or she was writing the recipes for a family cook who would have had advanced cooking skills – for she does not include basic steps or cooking times in her entries. A recipe for terrapins – turtles – is a good example of this, as well as a reminder of how recipes enjoy a “vogue” just as fashions do. The recipe begins, “Let them simmer in a vessel of water until you think them perfectly clean, then put them into a pot of boiling water and let them boil until you can loosen the outside skin above the feet – Select the meat from the shells, but do not disturb the gall” (1876; according to Busk, “This is the Baltimore way of cooking terrapins”).
These recipes are indicative of Busk’s social status; one can imagine them being served to impress guests for their sophistication and novelty. Busk clearly sought inspiration from her surroundings when including recipes, as they often are connected to a place she was staying, or something she had read. Such recipes include fondue (New York, 1868; and later a Swiss fondue excerpted from the N.Y Evening Post, in 1880); stuffed eggplant (Staten Island, n.d.); clam fritters and devilled lobster (New London, 1875); eggs dressed as plover’s eggs (Ascot Place, UK, 1874); cheese straws (C. Lodge, 1880); and a summery-sounding “Rhubarb mould” (Bradford Street, 1883). One charming recipe, appearing about midway through the book and without a date or a place, is for “Birds Nest Salad”:
Put a little green coloring into cream cheese, giving it a delicate color like birds eggs: roll it into balls size of birds eggs. Arrange some crisp lettuce leaves on a flat dish, group them to look like nests, moisten with pinch dressing and place some of the cheese balls in each nest of leaves. The cheese balls may be varied by flecking them with black or r
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