Extracts from an old recipe/day book  1840-49

Miss Elizabeth Bagshaw, Earl Sterndale

(or what to do with 500 oysters & how to make Ching’s Worm Lozenges)

This Book includes sales and purchases of sheep, pigs & cows, hand written poetry extracts, recipes, an almanac and a few other little niceties.

 A letter!

                                                           Hell

                                                          Feb 12^th

Dear Sir

We have had good news from hell, the devil wants a fire man and we think you will suit him well.  A devil thou art, a devil thou be, a devil may take such a devil as thee ….

From your friend

Harry Jay

 Purchases 

A little extract

Charlotte Bagshaw

My dear angel I would love

Harvest Wages 1849 

 Hired

1849 Hired Robert Mellor April 30 at the rate of nine pounds 15 shillings.

Some Sales

In another hand (1850)

                                                                   March 15^th

With the stars and the quick spirit of the universe he held his dialogues and they did teach him the magic of their mystris to no one

from your affectinat frend John Bagshaw

(Signed) John Bagshaw

Some Recipes

Please note that these are not tried and tested by us and therefore they do not come with any recommendations!

Grans Pancakes

(Gran must have been making pancakes in the late 1700’s)

Stir a pint of cream gradually into three spoonfuls of flour and beat them very smooth.  Add to this six eggs half a pound of melted butter and a little sugar.  These pancakes will fry from their own mixture without butter.

Turnip Tops

Turnip tops are the shoots which come out in the spring from the old turnip roots.  Drest like sprouts they make a very nice sweet greens and are esteemed great purifiers of the blood and juices.

 There follows a number of recipes for Sea-cale, Jerusalem Articokes, Potatoes, Red Beetroot, Celery and then a variety of sauces.

But then, my absolute favourite ……….!

Oyster Catsup

Take five hundred oysters and wash them in there own liquor wich must be boiled and well skimmed; then chop them small and stew them in the liquor for half an hour.  Strain it; and add a pint of white wine, a quarter of a pound of anchovies, half an ounce of black pepper, a quarter of an ounce of mace, nutmeg and ginger, ten cloves and four bay leaves.  Boil it ten minutes and bottle it.  The spices should be put into the bottles.  This number of oysters makes four quarts.

Can anyone please tell me, how would someone living in Earl Sterndale (buying & selling cattle and pigs etc) get hold of 500 oysters in 1850?

Diet Bread

(Yes, Diet Bread in 1849)

The weight of twenty eggs in flour and then in sugar.  (I think that the weight of an egg was considered to be 3ozs)  Break fifteen eggs, separate the yolks from the whites.  Mix the sugar well with the yolks, then froth the whites well, mix the yolks and sugar with them and then stir in the flour, first dreging it well.  Butter the tin and bake it in a moderate oven.  

To Make Vinegar

To a middle sort of beer well hopped and when it has worked and become fine put English grapes or raisins into it.  To every ten gallon of beer a pound, put them into a tub and stir them well about and when the sediment has settled to the bottom draw off the liquor into another cask and set it in the sink with the bung out and put a slate on the hole in a month or six weeks it will be good vinegar and when ready draw it off into another cask bung it up well and keep in your cellar for use.  This is good for pickling.

Thank heavens for supermarkets!

Then follows:

Reynold’s Astrological and Prophetic Almanack, for 1849

The great Birmingham Magician in his cabalistic Circle

With predictions for the Year 1849

Some extracts:

There are tables for calculating interest at 5%, tables to calculate wages (year, month, week and per day) from £1- £14 pa !!!!.

And

A table to calculate Window Tax. 

From 8 windows @ 16s 6d pa

To 39 windows @ £13 12s 0d pa

Farm houses belonging to Farms under £200 a year, are exempt from Window Duty.  All persons who are assessed to, or have compounded for Windows for the year ending April 5^th, 1836, are entitled to open, and keep open free of duty, an additional number.

Under Miscellaneous is a section on weather

Observations of the Weather

If the wind veers about much, rain is pretty sure.  If in changing, it follows the course of the Sun, it brings fair weather: the contrary, foul. – Whistling or howling of the wind, a sure sign of rain.  Before rain, swallows fly low; dogs grow sleepy, and eat grass, waterfowl dive much; fish will not bite; flies are more troublesome; toads crawl about; moles, ants, bees, and many insects are very busy; birds fly low for insects; swine, sheep, and cattle are uneasy, and even the human body participates in the general disquietude.

Finally there are a number of Valuable Recipes

Erasmus Wilson’s Lotion for promoting the Growth of hair

Eau de cologne 2oz., tincture of cantharides 2 dr., oil of rosemary and oil of lavender, each of 10 drops.

Morrisons’s Pills

1.     Aloes and cream of tartar, equal parts, mucilage sufficient to form a pill mass.

2.    Gamboge 2 dr. aloes 3 dr. colocynth 1 dr. cream of tartar 4 dr., syrup to mix.

Both are purgative, the latter especially so.  Dose of either 5 to 15 gr.

There are also recipes for mending china, tooth powder for remedying bad breath, a Liniment for Baldness, Prince Albert’s Curling Liquid and several others.

Finally, I can’t resist this one!

Ching’s Worm Lozenge

Ginger 2 oz. Jalap 1 dr., calomel 1 scruple, white sugar, 1 oz beat well to a mass with simple syrup, and divide into 20 lozenges or cakes; each lozenge will contain 1 gr of calomel.  Dose, from 2 to 4, early in the morning, fasting.

Thank you Betty for the loan of this Book.

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