Tag Archives: recipe books

Autumn 2024, Posts

Using Images of Objects for Healthcare in Sixteenth-Century China

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By Cheng He

Late-sixteenth-century China witnessed the increasing publication of illustrated books of various kinds. This includes books on health preservation, which deals with treating illness and everyday practices that are good for one’s health conditions and longevity. Sleeping, eating, drinking, walking, reading, writing, playing musical instruments, traveling, collecting, and appreciating art objects were all related to nourishing one’s life. In 1591, the book Eight Discourses on the Nurturing of Life (Zunsheng bajian) was published. It covers the aspects mentioned above, and illustrations accompany a few sections. In addition to images that introduce gymnastic exercises, which have been discussed in academic research, there are also some images of objects. 

Fig. 1: Hamper for cold food and drink, in Zunsheng bajian: Eight Discourses on the Nurturing of Life (1591), Vol. 8, 40b. Courtesy of the Harvard-Yenching Library, Chinese Rare Book Collection.

The first group of illustrations of objects is in the chapter on traveling in natural landscapes with friends. It is both a physical and spiritual pleasure to immerse oneself in nature, to enjoy the scenery, food, and drink of each season, and to create poems to record precious moments.

Fig. 2: Hamper with a stove, in Zunsheng bajian: Eight Discourses on the Nurturing of Life (1591), Vol. 8, 41a. Courtesy of the Harvard-Yenching Library, Chinese Rare Book Collection.

In this chapter, two images introduce the internal structure of hampers and ways of packing (Figures 1 & 2). The author, Gao Lian, mentioned that he made both hampers himself. The first one is for cold food and drink, with upper layers for plates of different sizes and a lower layer for flagons and wine cups. The second hamper is equipped with a small stove in the lower layer. One can place pots for tea, wine, or congee in the middle layer for direct heating. Rather than depicting the food or drink themselves, the illustration is more about better utilizing the space for packing, which is also an element that helps the reader enjoy the trips.

The second image on flagons further emphasizes the practical purpose of using it (Figure 3). It shows two types of flagons: one round and the other gourd-shaped. Accompanying texts introduce their materials and uses. Here images simply show the shape of flagons as a visual introduction.

Fig. 3: The flagons, in Zunsheng bajian: Eight Discourses on the Nurturing of Life (1591), Vol. 8, 41b. Courtesy of the Harvard-Yenching Library, Chinese Rare Book Collection.

However, illustrations are far more than just practical methods of  instruction. In other cases, they were as crucial as the text. A considerable quantity of illustrations in Eight Discourses are in the chapter on inkstone. One can grind an ink stick against the inkstone with water to make ink for writing and painting. Finely made inkstones vary in shape and materials, and are valuable collectibles commonly seen in study rooms. Literate people used them for writing or painting, appreciating the stones’ aesthetic quality, and thus gaining pleasure and cultivating their spirit. In the book, Gao shows his preference for inkstones over other collectibles. He carefully introduced the ways of appreciating and preserving inkstones, explaining the desired textures and colors of stones for grinding ink. He was sad that inkstones were less valued than gold or jade, easily lost or hidden at corners. 

His concern is demonstrated first through the number of illustrations: Gao included images of twenty high-quality inkstones that he claimed to have seen in the recent decade (Figures 4 & 5). Afraid that these fine works would be lost or damaged in the future, he made images as a record, stating that “I’m ashamed of my limited painting skill, failing to portray these inkstones fully.”1 This suggests that, for Gao, images can serve as a more helpful method than texts for describing objects or instructions for collecting.

Fig. 4: Inkstones, in Zunsheng bajian: Eight Discourses on the Nurturing of Life (1591), Vol. 15, 24b–25a. Courtesy of the Harvard-Yenching Library, Chinese Rare Book Collection.

Compared with the illustrative images with inserted texts on hampers and flagons, the images here are more prominent and separated from the texts. Although aid is needed from the text to know the different materials and sizes of each stone, we can notice that more details are added to portray the patterns, textures, and shapes. The stone in Figure 5 is called “silver thread inkstone.” Besides the dimension, black color, and jade-like gentle texture, Gao emphasized that the silver thread patterns are “picturesquely intersected within the stone.”2 Therefore, images are both visual descriptions and aesthetic expressions. When appreciation of art works became a part of pursuing health, the images of health instruction went beyond illustrative functions. Illustrations of inkstones are not only visual translations of texts explaining “how to preserve health” but also convey artistic qualities that texts can hardly capture. 

Fig. 5: “Silver thread inkstone,” in Zunsheng bajian: Eight Discourses on the Nurturing of Life (1591), Vol. 15, 30b. Courtesy of the Harvard-Yenching Library, Chinese Rare Book Collection.

Images in Eight Discourses illustrate the concept of health preservation in sixteenth-century China; it was crucial to nourish one’s spirit with entertainment and art in addition to daily practices such as eating, sleeping, or exercising. Although the reasons for including or not including specific images can vary, these illustrations provide clues for understanding images in recipes for health. In Eight Discourses, images were deeply associated with the author’s own experience: he made or saw those objects with appreciation. For Gao, Images as recipes helped visualize texts for both practical and aesthetic purposes. 

Cheng He recently completed her PhD in History at the University of Warwick. Her doctoral research focuses on the evolving concept of “lacquer” in early modern Britain, examining its materiality and varied applications in art and medicine. She is interested in early modern material culture, history of science and medicine, and global art history. 

  1. Gao Lian 高濂 (active 16th century), Zunsheng bajian遵生八牋 Eight Discourses on the Nurturing of Life (1591), Vol. 15, 20b. All translations are the author’s own. ↩︎
  2. Gao, Zunsheng bajian, Vol. 15, 30b. ↩︎
17th Century, Experimentation, Posts

The Barclay Project

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By Marissa Nicosia, with Christina Riehman-Murphy and Clara Drummond

Christian Barclay Jaffray (1680-1758) began gathering recipes for cookery, medicine, and dyeing cloth in 1697 when she was seventeen in a book that she titled “A Receipt Book, or, The Fruits of a Young Woman’s Spare Hours” (Manuscript, Scotland, 1697-1723).

This small, fine volume arrived at Penn State Libraries’ Eberly Family Special Collections as part of the “Robert Barclay of Ury family papers and maps” collection. Robert Barclay, Christian’s father, was a prominent Scottish Quaker leader and author of Apology for the True Christian Divinity (1678). The Ury family papers include Robert Barclay’s correspondence with William Penn and maps of his proprietary holdings in New Jersey and Pennsylvania as well as Christian’s receipt book. Although the collection was acquired primarily for the historical and geographical papers connecting the Barclays to William Penn and Pennsylvania history, the daughter’s recipe book is a true gem.

Read the transcription!

Penn State undergraduate students have transcribed the entire manuscript and published it through the library’s digital exhibition platform. Special Collections as well as the Preservation, Digitization, and Conservation team prioritized Christian’s receipt book for digitization and this foundational work facilitated a multi-year transcription project. During the 2021-2022 academic year, Penn State Abington students enrolled in the undergraduate research project “What’s in a Recipe?” undertook a complete first-pass transcription of the manuscript under the supervision of Heather Froehlich, Marissa Nicosia, and Christina Riehman-Murphy. In 2022-2023 Jonah Carver (PSU class of 2023) held a Bednar Internship and worked to edit and prepare the transcription for publication online by comparing the initial transcription created by Abington students with the digital images of the manuscript online and the original manuscript in the Special Collections library.

Bake Barclay!

With a little strategic updating to modify the original seventeenth-century instructions, Christian’s recipes are a delight in the kitchen. Since 2022, we have featured baking recipes from this manuscript in our annual, global, friendly competition between Penn State Libraries and Monash University Libraries: The Great Rare Books Bake Off. We especially recommend her delectable “Sugar Biskets.” Marissa has also updated a few more of Christian’s recipes as part of her ongoing Cooking in the Archives project.

Dye Wool in Sad Purple!

During the summer and fall of 2023, Jonah, Marissa, and Christina joined collaborators at the Center for Virtual Material Studies to recreate a few of Christian’s recipes for dyeing wool in gorgeous colors like the warm mauve “Maiden’s Blush.” While there are not yet published, modernized versions of Christian’s dye recipes, experienced practitioners can try their hands at her recipe for “Sad Purple” (aka dark or deep purple) using the published transcription. The dyed wool that we collectively prepared was displayed alongside the manuscript (and many other fascinating materials) in the Special Collections exhibit Sad Purple and Mauve: A History of Dye-Making (September 2023-January 2024).

For more on these projects see:

Cooking in the Archives: www.rarecooking.com

Instagram: @rare_cooking

Threads: @rare_cooking

Twitter/X: @rare_cooking & @Nicosia_Marissa

Bluesky: @nicosiamarissa.bsky.social

Facebook: CookingintheArchives

Early Modern, Food and Drink, Posts, Winter 2024

Early Modern Research with Britain’s Favourite Organic Producer

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By Grace Palmer

In the spring of 2023, I undertook a deep dive into early modern British (and some European) recipes for a project with Hexhamshire Organics, an organic farm near Newcastle in the North East of England, focused on creating short sentences on the historic uses of herbs, fruit and vegetables, designed to pique their customers’ interests by examining how their favourite produce was consumed in the past. Within this project, I focused on using domestically-produced receipt books – which were often collaborative family books carefully curated by multiple generations to create unique recipe collections – and horticultural texts, produced as instruction manuals for gardeners, providing information on the multitude of plants that were cultivated by early modern Britons. Admittedly these sources were produced by and for the upper- and middle-classes, however they are a fascinating route to understanding how food was enjoyed in the past, and do provide some insights into the culinary habits of ordinary Britons.

Pages exploring ‘mountayne Radish’ and ‘Carrottes’ in Rembert Dodoens (trans. Henry Lyte Esquyer), A Niewe Herball, or Historie of Plantes, (published in England- 1578), pp 600-601


Perhaps especially because our audience for this project was consumers interested in organic, locally-sourced produce, I was struck by the similarities some recipes held to many present-day dishes loved by modern Britons. For example, many recipes including carrots described the vegetable being enjoyed grated and baked with a variety of spices, reminiscent of a modern carrot cake. Similarly, by the 18th century, recipes instructing how tomatoes (a ‘New World’ discovery for many early modern Europeans) could be made into ketchup were more commonplace. It was fascinating to see how some of my favourite and regularly consumed dishes had such long-reaching origins. While early modern recipe books often contained the spectacular, documenting exceptional meals that were not eaten on an everyday basis, I was struck by the variety of herbs, fruits and vegetables that were clearly dietary staples. Explorations into the New World expanded the origins of commonly eaten produce: potatoes, the Jerusalem artichoke (named the “potato of Canada”), and peppers (initially viewed with some suspicion, but were quickly cultivated by poor farmers as a cheap alternative of expensive, imported black pepper) were often included in recipe collections, alongside spices from across South and Eastern Asia. Contemporary cooks displayed a clear interest in the presentation and taste of their dishes. A variety of herbs and spices were used – including dill, savory, chillies and sorrel – to add depth of flavour. Recipes describe the various innovative ways produce was used as a garnish, instructing the reader to pickle red cabbage to enhance its purple-red hue, or to finely chop brussels sprouts, to make dishes more visually appealing. I found that my research challenged pre-existing conceptions I myself had about potentially “backwards” culinary habits from the early modern era as the recipes instead showcased the diverse and rich culinary traditions from the period.

Early modern people assigned a fascinating array of medical uses to almost all plants. While some seem to make logical sense to the modern reader, many seem incredulous. (Giant) mustard leaves were often placed like a plaster on a patient’s head to help prevent vertigo. Spring onions were made into an ointment to cure dandruff, and lettuce was eaten after supper to prevent drunkenness, imagined to stop alcohol vapours (widely believed to cause drunkenness) reaching the brain. One early modern writer even used globe artichokes as a deodorant, believing the vegetable helped reduce the smell of his armpits. The huge variety of medical uses assigned to various herbs, fruits and vegetables is a testament to the ingenuous inventions of contemporaries, showcasing how they innovatively used all aspects of different produce to understand the world around them. Many medicinal recipes for common ailments and diseases were passed between generations, adapted and improved through experimentation over time. Much of the way early modern people understood their diet was influenced by humoral theory, often dictating the imagined medicinal cures behind plants and even the combination of ingredients set out in recipes. For example, sorrel was often paired with meats or eggs for its perceived cooling properties, imagined to aid digestion. Similarly, “hot and dry” horseradish was commonly eaten with fish, believed to counteract the negative associations of the “cold and wet” nature of fish. The humoral properties of produce meant some recipes came with warnings for future readers: cooks were advised against serving raw onions, imagined to induce headaches and dull the senses, and readers were warned about the overconsumption of spinach, believed to cause nausea. While sometimes comedic to the modern reader, early modern cooks used commonly consumed produce in innovative ways to understand the world around them, a testament to their ingenuity and invention.

Overall, this was a fascinating project, which taught me a huge amount about early modern recipes, diets, and consumption habits more broadly. While this project focused on highlighting the spectacular and sometimes comedic aspects of early modern food habits, I was struck by the many similarities to modern recipes and gained a deeper understanding of the rich history behind British cuisine. I hope this project will help inform Hexhamshire Organics’ customers on the fascinating interplay between early modern and present-day uses of their favourite produce, and perhaps even provide historic inspiration for unconventional and thrifty ways to make the most of locally grown fruit and vegetables.

Grace Palmer is currently studying for her MA in history at Durham University, having recently completed her undergraduate studies there. She is writing her dissertation on poisoning as a method for resistance by enslaved men and women and white fear of poisoning conspiracies in plantation era America. Outside of academia, Grace is a keen foodie and enjoys experimenting with new vegetarian recipes. She is also an avid sports fan and shares a season ticket to her local football club with her brother. 

Posts, Spring 2023, Teaching Resources

The Rebirth of Embodiment: Hand-Compiling an Early Modern Recipe Book

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By Mackie Black

The early modern family participated in manuscript culture through the collection and trading of recipes among family, friends, and political connections. In this post, I describe how modern scholars can participate in a new manuscript culture through transcription. While digital transcriptions are valuable for accessibility, these projects hide thephysical experience that went into the creation of these texts. Though digital transcription does include physicality, with typing and coding and especially in an emotional sense with the frustration at a difficult word or phrase and the ultimate joy that comes with figuring it out, this is a different embodied experience than that of recreation through rewriting. Hand-writing recreation provides a more in-depth understanding of the messy physical processes of the past, those that leave the writer with ink-stained hands and the paper with scratched out mistakes, rather than the clean processes of the present. The cleanliness of today’s digital interaction with manuscripts removes not only the physical mess of writing with ink but also streamlines our encounters with these manuscripts to the point that their mistakes and quirks can be ignored in favor of analyzing the clean, edited text. My experience reconstructing the compilation of an early modern recipe book by hand-copying recipes using writing technology that closely approximates those of the time, became an act of recovering this messy embodiment. The physical act of transcription raises new questions that can allow us to more fully understand the processes behind the creation of these manuscripts. 

Photo of two sheets of paper with handwriting.
Attempts to copy recipes with a quill (left) and an ink-dipped pen (right).

My project adds to work by scholars including Marissa Nicosia at Cooking the Archives and Margaret Simon by stepping away from the kitchen and into the processes of recipe collection and copying. For this project, I created my own recipe book using manuscripts held by the Folger Shakespeare Library LUNA: Manuscript Transcriptions Collection and the Wellcome Collection as a final project for a graduate seminar. I skimmed through 8 manuscripts and selected 67 recipes that I could see myself making, focusing on those with vegetarian ingredients to fit my own diet, before hand-copying them in a notebook using either a quill or an ink dip pen. I also used cutting to remove unwanted ingredients and paste in recipes, mirroring this tool as it was used in recipe books, commonplace books, and in the literature of George Herbert and the Ferrar family in their Little Gidding Harmonies. 

Photo of open notebook with sections of handwriting and sections of cut-and-pasted excerpts from other notebooks.
Pages 88 and 89 of the completed recipe book showing two examples of cutting in order to remove non-vegetarian ingredients from recipes.

I experienced a difficult and messy process, one that left me with hand cramps and ink stains. Moving from the keyboard to the quill reconnected me to the methods of the past. While I was unable to fully leave the 21st Century behind thanks to my reliance on digitized manuscripts, I was able to experience the physical processes of writing down a recipe using an inkwell and quill. Digital transcription work is not messy, but this hand-copying was, engaging senses such as smell that get lost in the digital world. At the end of the day, there will be no ink stains left on the hands of the digital transcriber, no ink splotches to frantically clean off the manuscript or the table. It is this messy physical experience that I aimed to explore and through which new questions and avenues for further research arose.

Close-up photo of ink-stained fingers with laptop in the background.
My ink-stained hands.

Through this project, I experienced transcription in a new way that gave me an experiential understanding of the shapes of letters in various hands. As soon as I began copying and writing the letter “w”, for example, I understood it and grew better at recognizing it. It took the experience of hand-copying these recipes to understand that the unique shape of the “w” is a function of the difficulty of doing upstrokes with a quill or ink dip pen. This helped me better understand the rationale for certain writing conventions of the past as more than mere quirks but as features necessitated by technology. This process of realization, this rebirth of knowledge, occurred frequently during this project and improved my transcription abilities, as I had a better understanding of the embodied experience of writing with the technology available in the 17th Century than I had when I had been only transcribing digitally.

Photo of desktop with open recipe notebook, open laptop, ink pen and inkwell, and paper for blotting ink.
My desk as I copied out recipes. Shown are the book in progress, my laptop which I used to pull up the recipes I was copying from, my ink well, my glass dip pen, and my scratch paper used to restart the flow of ink on the pen if it dried out.

This experience also had me asking new questions. Unlike with digital transcription, when hand-writing, I was focused on the processes of copying. I asked myself, what types of editing were the authors using when they copied these recipes? Were they editing as they wrote by removing ingredients like I was? Were they adding ingredients that they thought would work better based on their own experience? Were they fixing mistakes such as removing repeated words and scratched out phrases like I was or were they at times introducing new mistakes? Does this editing count as unique knowledge creation?

A photo of a notebook with writing in black ink.
Pages 57 and 58 of the completed recipe book.

These new questions and this new experience allowed me to better understand why early modern writing looks the way it does. It opened a door for the recovery and rebirth of the physical knowledge hidden behind digital archives and digital transcription. Projects like this one that force modern scholars to rediscover this embodiment for themselves allow us to uncover this hidden knowledge, leading to a better understanding not only of the processes that resulted in the manuscripts we study but also of the people that created them.