Call Number:

Ms. Codex 2186

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

1 volume

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Limehouse recipe book, not before 1822, Ms. Codex 2186, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

not before 1822

Form:

Recipes and Cookbooks

Abstract:

This volume contains 206 culinary, medicinal, and household recipes written and compiled by Mrs. Jolip[?] in Limehouse, England as early as 1822, and likely into the 1830s. Based on this location, it seems as if the creator could have been from a middle or working-class background. The beginning portion of this volume contains mathematics exercises and practice and the remainder of the volume consists of culinary, medicinal, and household recipes.

The creator of this recipe book, Mrs. Jolip [?], is not clearly identified. An inscription on the back pastedown states that the creator lived at 21 Gill Street in Limehouse, Greater London, England. Based on this location, it seems as if the creator could have been from a middle or working-class background.

In the early and mid-19th century, when this volume was likely created, Limehouse was largely defined by Limehouse basin, an industrial dock complex that connected the River Thames with two of London's canals.

According to a map of the area from 1830, there were industrial docks, warehouses, a workhouse (at the location which later became Stepney Union Workhouse), and St. Anne's Church in the immediate vicinity of the creator's address. By an 1870 survey map, the area was home to the Regent's Canal Docks, Island Lead Works, Blackwall Railway, Lea Cut Works, a foundry, a timber yard, a saw mill, Stepney Union workhouse and school, the "Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans, and South Sea Islanders," and St. Anne's Church.

Sources:

"G5754_L7_1830_G7_Stitched." Harvard Map Collection, iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/ids:8982548. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.

Higginbotham, Peter. "Stepney, Middlesex, London." The Workhouse in Stepney, London: Middlesex, www.workhouses.org.uk/Stepney/. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.

'Limehouse Hole: The riverside area', in Survey of London: Volumes 43 and 44, Poplar, Blackwall and Isle of Dogs, (London, 1994) pp. 388-397. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vols43-4/pp388-397. Accessed 19 April 2024.

"Ordnance Survey, London (First Editions C1850s) XXXVII (Bermondsey; Stepney) - Ordnance Survey 25 Inch England and Wales, 1841-1952." National Library of Scotland. maps.nls.uk/view/103313024. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.

This volume contains 206 culinary, medicinal, and household recipes written and compiled by Mrs. Jolip[?] in Limehouse, England as early as 1822, and likely into the 1830s. The beginning portion of this volume contains mathematics exercises and practice (p. 1-38) and the remainder of the volume consists of recipes, most of which are culinary, but medical remedies and household products are also included.

At least three hands are present in this volume, though the first to appear writing recipes is the most common throughout. There are blank pages (p. 132-147) and 10 additional leaves with recipes laid in. There are additionally addresses for a Mrs. Rhind at 11 Green Place, Bethnal Green, England and Mrs. Herne at 23 Plumbtree Street, Holborn, England (p. 148).

The mathematics exercises include lessons and practice on "inverse proportion," "the double rule of three," and "the rule of three direct." The handwriting for the mathematics section appears calligraphic.

The culinary recipes comprise the bulk of this volume (p. 40-89) and contain an alphabetical index (p. 90-92). The remainder of the volume contains culinary, medicinal, and household recipes (p. 93-152).

Examples of recipes in this volume include mock turtle soup (p. 40), an olive Florentine (p. 43), to pot venison (p. 50), to pickle barberries (p. 56), quaking pudding (p. 59), spring pye (p. 63), Ratifia biscuits (p. 65), Bath cakes (p. 66), Hawthorn jelly (p. 74), snail-drink (p. 78), a very pretty side dish (p. 83), to coddle codlins green for tarts (p. 85), Shrewsbury cakes (p. 94), to dye blue (p. 108), to preserve shoes and boots (p. 111), lemon honeycomb (p. 116), to give a fine color to mahogany (p. 119), to clean stone stairs (p. 126), Mrs. Randall's ointment (p. 130), and hooping cough [whooping cough] (p. 131).