Call Number:

Item 0150

Repository:

University of Delaware Library Special Collections

Extent:

1 volume (approximately 45 pages)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

MSS 0097, Item 0150, Manuscript recipe and clippings book, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.

Date:

approximately 1852-1878 (inclusive)

Creator:

Creator unknown

Form:

Poems, Cookbooks, Recipes, Scrapbooks, Manuals (instructional materials), and Clippings (information artifacts)

Abstract:

This anonymous mid- to late-nineteenth century American manuscript and clippings book includes numerous recipes, many with ties to the cuisine of the American South. It also includes handwritten and pasted-in home remedies, poems, puzzles, and stories.

The creator of this nineteenth-century American manuscript and clippings book is unknown, though some clues to its Southern origin are found in handwritten passages and one dated memorial clipping. Many recipes represent Southern regional cooking, and there are references to New Orleans, Natchez, Kentucky, and Texas within the book.

One handwritten passage is written in ink, dated "New Orleans, March 14th 1861." Several pages of recipes are laid in on two leaves of paper bearing the name and address, " Emma M. Vennogerholz (?), Pewee Valley, Oldham County, Kentucky." The clipping is a poem published "in memory of Dr. T. D. Manning, who died in Holly Spring, Mississippi, on September 20th, 1878, by Mrs. M.E. Whitten," with publication date September 28, 1878, Austin, Texas.

Biographical information derived from collection.

This nineteenth-century American manuscript, with entries and items dating from 1852-1878, includes handwritten cooking, medicinal, and domestic recipes, along with clippings of recipes, poems, puzzles and similar items.

Recipes include clippings and handwritten cookery recipes, primarily for desserts, including Sallie Lunn cake, fruit cake, huckleberry cake, jambalaya, jumbo, baked oysters, green tomato pickle, and musk melon preserves. Medicinal entries include a blood purifier, as well as cures for earache and the piles. Additional household recipes include one for the hair, a hint on preventing tin from rusting, and a "useful perfume."

In addition to recipes, the clippings include sentimental poems, prayers, humorous items, and a dictionary of musical terms on the end pastedown. There are handwritten poems, including one on page four addressed "To my dear sister" and dated 1852. Eight pressed flowers, probably pansies, are laid-in.

This volume consists of approximately forty-five filled pages of a variety of handwritten items and clippings in no discernible order. Many pages have been left blank, likely done by the owner to preserve space for later additions. The binding is bound in leather with crudely shaped ovals on front and back for inlays, with a small amount of decorative blind stamping along the borders. The spine is missing.