THE COOKERY BOOK COLLECTION OF RUTH WATSON
Lot 50•
MANUSCRIPT RECIPE BOOK - DEVON Culinary recipe book bearing the ownership name of "Mary Whitter" and dated "1771" on inside cover and "M. Rogers" with indistinct date [1762?], c.1762[?] to c.1812
19 August 2020, 13:00 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £4,437.50 inc. premium
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MANUSCRIPT RECIPE BOOK - DEVON
Culinary recipe book bearing the ownership name of "Mary Whitter" and dated "1771" on inside cover and "M. Rogers" with indistinct date [1762?], on upper cover, written in several hands, prefaced with an index, including receipts for "Lemon Flummery", "To souse hogs feet and ears", "To friccasey colliflowers", "A nice pudding" ("...you must beat it near an hour..."), "New College pudding", "Pickle hams like Westphalia", "Pickle Nasturtian buds", "Inoculation cake", "To dry Artichoke Bottoms", "A Receipt for Sugar Vinegar my Mother much recommends", "A plain Cake for the Children... Nurse Backhouse", "William Garland's receipt for to brew a 27 Gallon Barril of ale", "To preserve Eggs Twelve Months"; some household and medicinal ("To get Ink out of Tables", "Docktor Brocklesbery Pectoral Drink"), with other medicinal remedies on inverted pages, some from members of the family ("Dr Whitters Prescription for Jenny for the Scurvey... my servant received great benefit", "Dr Babington prescription for a stiffness in the leg"), some attributed to family and neighbours in Devon (Tiverton, Holcombe etc.) and Shropshire, the penultimate receipt dated 1 October 1812, a plan for a "Christing Dinner" written in final leaf ("...soop remove for fish... roast pigg... in another room soup... beef... carrot Pudden..."), with several loose recipes, one on a printed haberdasher's slip from 'E. Butland of High Street, Exeter', 200 pages, some browning and usual signs of wear, some pages excised, contemporary vellum, bowed, scored, worn and stained, 4to (200 x 160mm.), c.1762[?] to c.1812
Footnotes
The owner of this recipe book, Mary Whitter of Bradninch, near Cullumpton, Devonshire, can be fully identified by a scrap of letter found tucked within its pages which has been used to note down a recipe. She was the daughter of the Rev. Edward Rogers, Rector of Myndtown, Salop and, in 1770, married John Whitter (1746-1794), a descendent of Thomas Whitter, an officer in Cromwell's army who settled in Exeter. That she took this book into her marriage is confirmed by the presence of her maiden name, "M. Rogers", written on the front cover. The inclusion of recipes from the area around Ludlow in the latter pages of the book would indicate that she passed her book to her daughter Catherine who, on her marriage to the Rev. Joseph Babington, went to live in the town in 1803. Mary Whitter was present at the baptism of their son Charles Cardale Babington in 1809, who went on to become a well-known botanist, archaeologist and Fellow of the Royal Society. The Whitter family estate papers reside in the Devon Record office (R4/1-0/PP/10).