.... 641.5942 RAW - ‘V;nu :; .*.0^ 'f*r >viii LEEDS UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Special Collections Cookery Camden 30106 023325912 AX OLD-WORLD RECIPE BOOK Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/b21538396 AN OLD-WORLD RECIPE BOOK With Preface hy MRS. WILLINGHAM RAWNSLEY LONDON GEORGE ROLTLEDGE & SONS Limited New York : E. P. DUTTON & CO . A (/«scj PREFACE MY GRANDMOTHER’S RECIPE- BOOK It is an ancient, white-vellum- covered book, yellow now with age, that has been handed down in the family, for, I should imagine, many generations, and was a familiar object, often consulted in the kitchen and store-room, in the days of our youth, when the produce of a large garden, farm and orchard, in the country came in, in its season, for cooking and preserving. And, as many of the recipes therein con- tained are as useful now as when 5 PREFACE they were first penned, and have lost no whit of their value, but rather, through much use and proved effi- ciency have gained an added worth, like the crust on old Port, it has seemed to me, that perhaps some extracts from the Volume may find favour, and be of practical assistance to some of those who still live in the country, and love to make use of its produce in their homes ; while the occasional quaint spelling, and men- tion of ingredients, or methods, now obsolete, may possibly give them an added charm, to the minds of some of us — in these days, when our jams so often come from the fruit-farm, or the factory, instead of from our 6 PREFACE own kitchen-gardens ; when home- brewed beer, once the most usual thing, is almost unknown, v/hen the art of curing our own bacon and hams is little practised, and even home-made bread is the exception, and not the rule. Who can remember the delight of the children of the house in being sent out in April and May into the fields to gather cowslips for wine ? and then, returning with huge bunches of the golden-sweet flowers, to sit on the grassy lawn amongst the daisies, and pull out the “ pips ” of the cowslips from their green calixes, throwing them into a china bowl, until it was heaped high with the 7 PREFACE feather-light, fragrant mass — and how many of these bowls-ful were re- quired until the barrel for the brew was filled up to the brim, and the making of the wine could commence ? Then, in the middle of June, when the elder-trees were a mass of creamy - white clustered blossom, there was the gathering of them to make elder - flower wine, or “ Eng- lish Frontignac,” which had indeed a delicious muscat flavour ! And in autumn, when the berries upon these same bushes were ripe, and hung down over-weighted with their own abundance, they also were ready to be cut and collected, not only into tin pans or crockery bowls — for the 8 PREFACE luscious, deep crimson juice, where the berries were broken, would make stains in a wicker basket that could never be washed out. The wine made from the elderberries was a rare treat, when warmed up in a saucepan and taken hot, to a weary party of young ones, coming in late in the winter twilight, after a long walk home from a day’s skating. “It will warm the cockles of your heart,” as a dear old friend used to say to us, and we thoroughly agreed with that wholly inexplicable phrase !

AI-modernized reading of the original text

.... 641.5942 RAW - ‘V;nu :; .*.0^ 'f*r >viii LEEDS UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Special Collections Cookery Camden 30106 023325912 AN OLD-WORLD RECIPE BOOK Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/b21538396 AN OLD-WORLD RECIPE BOOK With Preface hy MRS. WILLINGHAM RAWNSLEY LONDON GEORGE ROLTLEDGE & SONS Limited New York : E. P. DUTTON & CO . A (/«scj MY GRANDMOTHER’S RECIPE- BOOK It is an ancient, white-vellumcovered book, yellow now with age, that has been handed down in the family, for, I should imagine, many generations, and was a familiar object, often consulted in the kitchen and store-room, in the days of our youth, when the produce of a large garden, farm and orchard, in the country came in, in its season, for cooking and preserving. And, as many of the recipes therein contained are as useful now as when they were first penned, and have lost no whit of their value, but rather, through much use and proved efficiency have gained an added worth, like the crust on old Port, it has seemed to me, that perhaps some extracts from the Volume may find favour, and be of practical assistance to some of those who still live in the country, and love to make use of its produce in their homes ; while the occasional quaint spelling, and mention of ingredients, or methods, now obsolete, may possibly give them an added charm, to the minds of some of us — in these days, when our jams so often come from the fruit-farm, or the factory, instead of from our own kitchen-gardens ; when homebrewed beer, once the most usual thing, is almost unknown, v/hen the art of curing our own bacon and hams is little practised, and even home-made bread is the exception, and not the rule. Who can remember the delight of the children of the house in being sent out in April and May into the fields to gather cowslips for wine ? and then, returning with huge bunches of the golden-sweet flowers, to sit on the grassy lawn amongst the daisies, and pull out the “ pips ” of the cowslips from their green calixes, throwing them into a china bowl, until it was heaped high with the feather-light, fragrant mass — and how many of these bowls-ful were required until the barrel for the brew was filled up to the brim, and the making of the wine could commence ? Then, in the middle of June, when the elder-trees were a mass of creamy - white clustered blossom, there was the gathering of them to make elder - flower wine, or “ English Frontignac,” which had indeed a delicious muscat flavour ! And in autumn, when the berries upon these same bushes were ripe, and hung down over-weighted with their own abundance, they also were ready to be cut and collected, not only into tin pans or crockery bowls — for the luscious, deep crimson juice, where the berries were broken, would make stains in a wicker basket that could never be washed out. The wine made from the elderberries was a rare treat, when warmed up in a saucepan and taken hot, to a weary party of young ones, coming in late in the winter twilight, after a long walk home from a day’s skating. “It will warm the cockles of your heart,” as a dear old friend used to say to us, and we thoroughly agreed with that wholly inexplicable phrase !

An old-world recipe book