Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book facts for kids
Cover of first edition
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| Editor | Hilary Spurling |
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| Author | Hilary Spurling, Elinor Fettiplace |
| Country | England |
| Subject | Elizabethan era English cuisine |
| Genre | cookbook |
| Publisher | The Salamander Press in association with Penguin Books |
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Publication date
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1986 |
Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book is a book from 1986. It shares and explains old recipes from a special book written by Elinor Fettiplace in 1604. This old recipe book was put together during her lifetime. It even has notes and additions written by different people over time.
The author, Hilary Spurling, is married to one of Elinor Fettiplace's family members. Her husband inherited the original recipe book. This modern book gives us a direct look at Elizabethan era cooking. It shows what it was like to cook in a grand country house during that time. It also includes Elinor Fettiplace's notes on how to manage a household.
Critics liked the book a lot. They said it showed new things about daily life in the Elizabethan era. Hilary Spurling was praised for trying out the old recipes, which was a difficult job.
Contents
About Elinor Fettiplace's Book
The Fettiplaces were an old and important English family. They lived in large homes in areas like Berkshire and Oxfordshire.
Elinor Fettiplace (born Poole) was married to Sir Richard Fettiplace. They lived at Appleton Manor. Elinor was born around 1570. She married Sir Richard in 1589 when she was 19. Her husband's family was very old and had once been rich from selling wool.
Her "Book of Receipts" is dated 1604. It's a collection of recipes she gathered and wrote notes on over many years. The recipes show what she was interested in. For example, she liked to preserve fruit. They also show her connections with other women of her time. Some recipes were even influenced by a French book called La Maison Rustique.
How the Book Was Written
Elinor Fettiplace's original book is written in "fine, clear, cranky Shakespearean English." You can see many changes in the old book. These include simple fixes, new ingredients, and different cooking times. The writing style is very practical and down-to-earth.
Besides Elinor's recipes, the book has notes in the margins. It also has more recipes added by up to eight different people. This means the book grew over more than one person's lifetime. It looks plain, without fancy pictures. This was common for private books back then. It was very different from books made by professional printers.
In 1647, Elinor gave the book to her niece, Anne Horner. She asked her to "keep it for my sake." More recipes were added later in that century. The book then stayed in the family. Eventually, it came to Hilary Spurling's husband.
A Private Collection
Elinor's book was not published when she was alive. It was a private book used for cooking and household tasks. It was not meant for people outside her family to read. The book was passed down to other women in the family. They would copy recipes they liked for their own use. This was a common practice.
Because it was a personal book, it has some "curious omissions." For example, there are almost no recipes for pork, ham, or bacon. There are also no recipes for duck, goose, or venison. You won't find carrots or parsnips. Onions are only mentioned once, for stewed oysters.
Elinor's notes were first copied out by Anthony Bridges. The recipes were not in any special order in the original book. Hilary Spurling arranged them for her published version. The old book did not have any pictures. However, it was made to look nice. It was written in neat handwriting on good quality paper. It was also bound in leather covers. The front cover has the Poole family's coat of arms in gold. The endpapers are made from pieces of old books written by monks.
Some historians believe Elinor started collecting recipes at her mother's request. She likely began by writing down recipes for sweets and preserves. When she married and moved to Appleton Manor, she probably brought some kind of recipe book with her.
Publishing the Book
The modern book was published in 1986 by The Salamander Press. They worked with Penguin Books. A paperback version came out in 1987. The book includes a picture of one page from Elinor's original manuscript.
This published book gives a detailed look at Elizabethan era cooking. It also shows what daily life was like in a rich country home. Other editions of the book include:
- Elisabeth Sifton Books, Viking, London and New York, 1986.
- Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1987.
- Faber and Faber, London, 2008.
Recipes from the Past
Elinor Fettiplace's book has recipes for different kinds of bread, like buttered loaves. It also includes recipes for apple fritters, preserves, and pickles. There's even a recipe for a huge celebration cake that could feed 100 people!
New foods, like the sweet potato, appear in the book. Sweet potatoes had just arrived from the New World. The following recipe shows how to cook a shoulder of mutton. It uses citrus fruits, which were also newly available. This recipe also shows Elinor Fettiplace's unique spelling and writing style:
Take a showlder of mutton and being halfe Roasted, Cut it in great slices and save the gravie then take Clarret wine and sinamond & sugar with a little Cloves and mace beatne and the peel of an oringe Cut thin and minced very smale. Put the mutton the gravie and these thinges together and boyle yt between two dishes, wringe the juice of an oringe into yt as yt boyleth, when yt is boyled enough lay the bone of the mutton beinge first Broyled in the dish with it then Cut slices of limonds and lay on the mutton and so serve yt in.
Elinor Fettiplace also had a recipe for "White Bisket Bread." Today, we call this a meringue. Her recipe used one and a half pounds of sugar, a handful of flour, and twelve beaten egg whites. This recipe is actually older than a French recipe for meringues from 1692.
