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By North Garms

This year at Tabley House, the other interns and I have had the chance to explore parts of the collection not always on show to the public. 

This is especially exciting for those of us interested in material culture, giving us access to an extensive archive of historic objects. Whilst most of Tabley’s painting collection is available to view online via the ArtUK platform, other important treasures at Tabley House are not so readily accessible; it is through our research and writing that we hope to share their stories. 

This can include anything from shoes, to wallpapers, or the architecture of the house itself. The object of interest in this blog post is the Tabley receipt book: a fascinating document of the practicalities associated with large country houses, and an immersive taste of regency life.

The receipt book at Tabley House was begun in 1696: 300 years before today, and 165 years before the publication of Mrs Beeton’s infamous Book of Household management. Far from a commercial publication that we might recognise as a ‘cook book’, this volume, hand-scribed by at least two different authors, offers an intimate glimpse into the diet, health, and routine of those who lived and worked in Tabley House.

Some of the recipes included in its pages include familiar tasty sweets such as ‘rice pudding’, or hearty savouries like ‘lamb pye’ and ‘a good soupe’. Less familiar concoctions include ‘oyster sausages’ and candied flowers. Indeed, tastes have changed somewhat since the 17th century, but it’s also likely that rare, unusual or decadent recipes would have been coveted signifiers of wealth and worldliness, especially when entertaining guests. 

The instructions on how to prepare ‘An Indian Dish’, might have been seen as particularly ‘exotic’ from the perspective of 17th century diners for example. Although this refernece to Indian cuisine is dubious, consisting of a chicken cooked in rice and seasoned with mace and nutmeg, it does represent an exciting example of international culinary history, with the first recipe for a ‘currey’ not being published in England until 1747 in Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy.

I decided to try my hand at one of the more accessible, and appetising, recipes recorded in the Tabley reciept book: A Biskett Pudding. Chosen in part for its legibility, in the larger and less faded handwriting of the two authors, I was attracted also to the especially fancy pen flourish it includes. 

Aside from these occasional flourishes, there are glimpses of illustrative flair in the composition of the physick title page by ‘A Mademoiselle Margaret Wainford’ framed above and below by striated triangles and hung by punctuated lines, perhaps resembling some sort of pharmaceutical instrument or weighing scales (purely speculation on my part). 

Also noteworthy is a delightful manicule (a marker of important information) wearing a frilled cuff, perhaps the fashionable gloved hand of the author herself. Both of these illustrations were penned in red ink that has sadly faded significantly over time, but are nonetheless charming. 

The dual authorship of this receipt book is complicated further by the challenge of identifying recipe origins. A network of exchange between accomplished female housekeepers facilitated the spread of coveted recipes in the 17th and 18th centuries, with varying amounts of citation. 

This represented a powerful source of collaborative, and likely competitive, agency at a time when women’s independence was strictly supressed. Some of the recipes in Elizabeth Raffald’s ‘The Experienced English Housekeeper’ can be even traced to the receipt book of Tabley’s neighbouring estate, Arley Hall. 

Having chosen my recipe, and overcome some other quirks of 17th century handwriting (eg. ligatures such as ye for ‘the’ and wth for ‘with), I set about compiling ingredients. I should also note that I chose to halve my recipe. 

• a quart of thick cream
• 50 naples biskett, shredded

I deduced these were equivalent to sponge fingers used for tiramisu, which I could not find, so I used cake rusks of a similar texture.

• a penny white loaf, shredded (Interpreted as a loaf I found reduced in the Lidl bakery section)
• 8 eggs & half the whites, beaten
• 1/2 a pound of beef suet, shredded
• nutmeg, shredded
• rose water
• sugar, if you please
• Ambergris

A waxy substance derived from the digestive system of whales, ambergris has long been a popular ingredient in perfumes for its strong, earthy scent. I was sadly, I think, unable to source any for my pudding.

With very little instruction on preparation aside from ‘shred’, ‘beat’ and ‘put in’ I decided to assemble this similarly to a bread and butter pudding, making a custard from the eggs, cream, rose water, sugar and nutmeg, then combining it with all the dry ingredients. 

I also opted to bake my pudding, despite the authors assertion that if baked, ‘you must put in a little amber greece’. Perfumed ingredients such as rose water and ambergris were very fashionable in England at this time, the latter being infamously expensive, and no doubt another way in which to impress important visitors eating at Tabley. 

Needless to say, ambergris is less common today in favour of the ubiquitous vanilla. Florals like rose and violet remain a popular flavourings in various Middle Eastern and South Asian confectionary however, and perseveres in the form of divisive sweets like Parma Violets and Turkish delight in the UK too. 

I will admit that I was cautious in my judgement of the unspecified quantity of rose water, but was pleasantly surprised by the flavour! 

My final product does resemble a traditional bread and butter pudding, perhaps due to my liberal interpretation, but with pleasantly subtle aromas of rose and nutmeg that are not at all medicinal tasting. My housemates and I enjoyed our dessert paired with a 17th century French harpsichord mix from Spotify, for extra immersion.

Speaking of Medicine, the receipt book is by no means limited to culinary recipes, with a sizeable section dedicated to the previously mentioned ‘physick’ or natural healing remedies in many forms: ‘oyls’, ‘oyntments’, ‘salves’, ‘powders’, ‘cordiall waters’. 

This collection of formulas is testament to the wide reaching responsibilities of housekeepers at Tabley, intertwining the dual roles of food and medicine in keeping its residents happy and healthy. The treatments can range from inane; a lip salve of bees wax and rose water, to serious; a medicine to ease (‘come forth kindly’) the onset of smallpox.

 The ‘Physick’ section also includes a table of botanical ingredients, recommending the time of year each one should be forages for and distilled. Countless methods of preservation by drying, pickling, and fermenting also highlight the seasonality of fresh food before domestic refrigeration. 

This close connection to the seasons would have been felt by the Leicester Warrens for their agricultural interests, and is reflected elsewhere in Tabley’s decorative scheme and architecture.

The Tabley House receipt book is therefore much more than a simple cookbook, but a valuable insight of day to day life in a country manor house: what people ate, how guests were entertained or impressed, and how the sick were cared for. 

Its comprehensive function reminds us of the complexities of managing large houses like Tabley, and the advancements made through the coming centuries in domestic technology, medicine and culinary tastes.

North Garms, 4th Year student in Art History and Japanese studies at the University of Manchester.