Due to Britain’s expanding empire in Asia, by the late eighteenth century Indian cuisine had become familiar to the English middle class. The present manuscript recipe book wonderfully reflects this, having apparently been started in the same year as the first Indian restaurant in England - the Hindostanee Coffee-House - opened in London in 1810.
The first section of the manuscript, dating to c.1810, commences with nineteen recipes for Indian food, including “Hindostanne Pillau”, “Common Curry” (including a note on “Mulugah Tannee”), “Dopiaha Curry”, “Curry Pimente, or Pepper Curry”, “Bulmer’s Curry / very superior”, “Koormah, or Brown Curry”, “Koftah, or Forced Meat Bale Curry”, “India Pickle”, and instructions for making a variety of different curry powders. In addition, it provides recipes for various puddings, jellies, jams, buns, and cakes, including “Strawberry Cakes”, two types of “Orange Jelly”, Mrs Duppa’s lemon cake, and Mrs Purrier’s “Ginger Bread Nuts”; various sauces, such as “Love Apple Sauce”, “Lemon Milk Punch”; wines such as Gooseberry, Currant, Alder, Cowslip, Rose, and Ginger; recipes for soups and the preparation of meats and fish, including how “to stew eels”; instructions as to how “to make Black Puddings” taken from a “London Tavern”; as well as a number of household and medicinal recipes. The subsequent mid nineteenth-century section contains further recipes for many other puddings and cakes, including “Regent’s Pudding” and Miss Ellen Bourne’s lemon biscuits; “Orange Marmalade”; “Potato Balls”; “Mock Turtle Soup”; “Chutnee”; instructions as to how “To Pickle Mushrooms”; and how “To make a Trifle”; amongst others. In this section in particular, the writer often adds comments regarding the recipe’s origin, as well as their opinion of it - for example, “Sponge Cake - Mrs. Barlow... very good & cheap”.
An appealing recipe book begun at the turn of nineteenth century, illustrating the growing influence of Indian cuisine on the British diet.