Books Full of Secrets

I have spent much of the last week reading my old cookbooks, not looking for recipes, but doing a little exploration and detective work.     It hasn't take me very far, but I have enjoyed it.

These particular books are fascinating.    Old, well worn, so well worn that some of them are falling apart, but they are wonderful documents.   

They are mystery stories -  well, all apart from the red one, which belonged to my mother.   It was her handwritten recipe book, so I have known it since childhood and it is very dear to me.

The others are all early Victorian handwritten recipe books.     Some of you already know about my passion for them.    My exploration and enjoyment of them continues.   I am a poor detective, for I haven't really made much progress in finding out who wrote them.   I don't suppose I ever shall, but that doesn't matter.

I have managed to unpick a little of the story from one of the very worn ones, it was originally a maths exercise book for the daughter of the rector of a church in Derbyshire.     Just a few pages were used for the original purpose - beautiful penmanship - and then the rest is filled with recipes for food and medicines, written in a much less refined hand.

That particular book is a treasure, it tells so many stories, even though the name of the cook is not revealed.   There are kitchen suppers, enormous school dinners, Christmas and Easter feasts for vast numbers of people, along with many hundreds of recipes.     Cook had to deal with 56 stone pigs, so there are lots of recipes for salting hams, etc.      It isn't always the easiest of books to read, simply because the handwriting takes some getting used to, but it has been worth the effort.       There are more leads to follow before I have completed my detective work on that volume.

The tan leather one seems to have belonged to a 'lady' her handwriting is beautiful.


The scope of her recipes is somewhat different from that of the vicar's cook.


The one next to it,  with the worn and nibbled spine, reads more like the cookbook of someone who lived in a town, rather than out in the countryside, but I need to do further work on it.

The light coloured book on the left, is very interesting - well they all are - it always reads more like a book which was used for amusement.   Lots of recipes, especially for ice creams and water ices, lots of handwritten knitting patterns, lists of people attending a funeral, a poem about a very tragic accident when a man fell through the ice on a pond and died.       That particular incident was easy to check up on, and it did happen, at a big country house in Cheshire.        More leads to be followed up on in the future.

Each and every book is fascinating.      Not least, the big black one.   More of that another time.
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Plum Pudding without Plums (Eggs, Butter, Milk or Water)

Searching for the plum...

That catchy little title got my attention as I browsed through one of my older recipe books.

I should have scanned it, but I didn't - apologies.




Anyone who have been reading my blogs (various id's!) over the years already knows about my passion for old recipe books, especially old, handwritten ones.



This one dates from about 1840 and belonged to a cook who lived and worked in a Rectory.




It is in poor condition, has lots of splashes and grease marks, tears, worn edges, loose pages - in other words, it has lived a very useful life.      I treasure it all the more because of the wear.

I followed a few clues within the book and found that it was a country parish, cook certainly had to deal with large hams and gluts of fruit and vegetables.    She also catered enormous Christmas and Easter meals for the village school, as well as the Great and Good of the parish.

Back to this recipe, though.    It is one of the more easily read ones, but just in case you can't make head or tail of the handwriting:

5 tablespoonfuls of Flour, 1 ditto moist sugar, 6 oz of Beef suet chopped very fine. 3 tablespoonfuls of carrot/which must be boiled the day before and mashed very fine/ 1/2 lb Currants and one plum.   Mix all together put it into a tin mould and boil it 3 hours.  Serve with wine sauce.


Shame upon me, I bought our Christmas pudding.  Perhaps I'll make this one next year, but somehow I doubt it, it sounds rather dull.


Whizzing forward through time to the Christmas of 1912, and I have a book in which there is an article about some old Christmas customs and Superstitions.   

Weather Prophecies include A warm Christmas, a cold Easter.       A green Christmas, a white Easter.   and in Nottinghamshire they say 'If ice bears a man before Christmas, it won't bear a mouse after.'    It is said by some weather experts that the twelve days  in this connection following December 25th set the tune for the coming summer, and a curious fact was told me the other day.    The forebears of a Somersetshire farmer had for over a hundred  been in the habit of making notes concerning the weather during these twelve days, and each year the summer proved to be of similar nature to that experienced just after Christmas.       It is also believed that 'a windy Christmas and a cold Candlemas are signs of a good year.'



In Devonshire at Christmas time the burning of the ashton faggot always took place on the eve of the feast, as was a most important ceremonial.   The faggot, which is composed entirely of ash timber, the separate sticks or branches being securely bound together with ash bands is so made that it can be conveniently burned on the hearth, and around it assembled the farmers, with their families and farm labourers, in order to spend a jovial evening.    A quart of cider was called for and served upon the bursting of every hoop or band with which the faggot is bound, and the timber, being green and elastic, a good many quarts were in requisition before the festivities were at an end.