English culinary and medical recipe book, 19th century

Collection of culinary and medicinal recipes, mainly in a single mid-19th century hand, with additional commonplaces and copious press cuttings pasted in. The principal compiler would seem to have been based in the London area and to have contributed to the collection from about 1843 to 1853. Medical entries, including several remedies for cholera, predominate at the beginning of the volume (up to f. 17) and from ff. 73-80 and 85-88. Otherwise the bulk of the entries are for food recipes. Commonplaces are entered from the rear of the volume, occupying ff. 89-138.

1840-1853

One volume 1 volume: approx. 190 x 120 mm. 138 ff. Red leather-covered boards. 10 loose enclosures.

Donated by Mr Michael Brown, of Ash, Kent, December 2015 (acc. 2336).

The chief compiler seems to have been related to the author John Whitchurch Bennett (1808-1843): part of a letter to Bennett from an unidentified correspondent is pasted in between ff. 2 and 3, and f. 17 is formed from the title-page of Bennett's posthumous work Letter to West India proprietors, merchants and planters upon the state of the West India colonies (London, 1848). Indeed it is possible that the earliest entries in the volume are by Bennett himself, particularly some of the commonplaces written from the rear.