Updating Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen
I’ve been working on a salad* recipe to share here, but this summer has not felt like a good time to test salads. On this rainy August morning, I realized I had some very very ripe peaches and decided to make something with them instead. (*Gervase Markham’s “Compound Sallet” to be precise. Learn more about … Continue reading To preserve peaches
It became abundantly clear that it was time to thin the clusters on the apple trees in the back garden when the branches began to bend in unusual ways. Codlings, unripe young apples, were weighing down the long thin branches. I needed to pick quite a few. I cooked with codlings for the first … Continue reading Codling Preserves (To preserve green fruit another way)
It’s always a thrill when I find a new chocolate recipe to test. A few weeks ago, a student brought a recipe “To Make Jaculat Milk” to my attention. Over the course of this academic year, I’ve been teaching paleography, material texts studies, and the history of food and medicine using the collection of digitized … Continue reading “To Make Jaculat (Chocolate) Milk”
This post was written by Marissa Nicosia and Sarah Peters Kernan. Sarah, a culinary historian, is co-editor of The Recipes Project and host of the Around the Table podcast. When Sarah and I realized that we had a shared interest in Lady Anne Percy’s recipe book, we decided to try out a recipe for a … Continue reading To make the Lady Duthes Crakenles
I always buy too many quinces. I am so excited when I first encounter them at the market in the autumn. I fill my bag. (I’ve written about my love of quinces here before.) So it was a good thing that I had already transcribed these two recipes for baked quinces from an early seventeenth-century … Continue reading hou to bake Quinoces
I have wanted to share this mushroom recipe with you for a long time. In the autumn of 2023, I puzzled over an image of this recipe from the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA f MS. 1968.004 on my laptop screen – how did the two parts of the recipe connect? The Recipe to … Continue reading to pickle mushroomes
Bake this recipe October 5-13, 2024 to participate in the fifth annual Great Rare Books Bakeoff! (More information at the end of the post.) It is always a thrill to take a look at a receipt book that I have never seen before. About a year ago, I sat down with Mistress Anna Campbell’s … Continue reading French Tosts
I love strawberry season. If anything will prompt me to turn on the oven at the start of a June heatwave, it’s probably a favorite strawberry recipe. Over the years, I’ve tried various historical recipes for tangy strawberry preserves, a refreshing strawberry water beverage, and chilled snow cream served with strawberries. Yesterday morning, before … Continue reading Tartes of strawberryes
This recipe “To Make Jumballs of Chocholett” is from Elisabeth Hawar’s recipe book (now William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, fMS.1975.003). A favorite on the banqueting table or dessert spread, many recipes for “Jumballs” or jumbles are collected in early modern recipe books. These small cookies are made from flour and almonds in varying proportions, … Continue reading To Make Jumballs of…
See the end of the post for information about the fourth annual Great Rare Books Bakeoff that is taking place this week (September 30-October 8, 2023)! On a recent visit to State College, I was delighted to see a new addition to our recipe book collection. Lady Elizabeth Craven began to compile this recipe book … Continue reading To Make Chocolett Cream (Lady Elizabeth Craven)