Say Cheese!
September 13, 2021
We may be approaching the end of picnic season, but we’re not quite ready to abandon buffet style finger foods just yet. We recently tried out an 18th century recipe for cheese rolls from one of the household recipe books in the archive as part of the 2021 Heritage Open Day theme of Edible England. …
Keep calm and Curry on
August 26, 2021
This year’s theme for Heritage Open Day (10-19 September) is Edible England, a subject that I can genuinely get excited about. There are quite a few recipe books and household management guides in the collections, ranging from handwritten books of favourite recipes, to published volumes that went through multiple editions and included advice on cooking for …
Elenor Mundy’s Cookery Book: Cracknells
September 3, 2020
This is a guest post by Library Assistant Safiya Williams. Like many during these strange and uncertain times I have found comfort in food, faced with shelves empty of my everyday food staples – pasta, rice, yeast – I found myself flipping through cookbooks and notebooks trying to make do with what I have. I …
Manuscripts Mysteries: Canada, Cake and Clergymen
October 12, 2015
The stereotypical, romanticized view of archives is one where researchers delve into a box of yellowed, long-forgotten papers to uncover clues and solve a mystery. But what happens when the boxes present more questions than they answer? For the last few months we’ve been turning to social media in an attempt to find out more …
Recipe of the month: Stewed rump of beef ‘the Welsh way’
November 1, 2011
The large quantities of herbs and spices used in 18th-century recipes are thought by some to have helped to disguise the taste of old meat, as preservation of fresh food before the invention of reliable refrigeration techniques was difficult. However, rich families with access to their own livestock, or the money to buy quality food, …
Recipe of the month: Cheese rolls
October 1, 2011
A recipe for dinner party canapés, not from the 1970s, but from somewhere around the 1770s, this recipe for puff pastry Cheshire cheese rolls come from an undated recipe book in the collection attributed to the Willoughby family of Aspley and Cossall. Cheese Rolls (MS 87/1, p. 2) A quarter of a pound of Chesire …
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