Georgian Recipes and Remedies

Book excerpt: “A brilliant collection of recipes, receipts, restoratives and remarkable cures from the Georgian era . . . a joy to read out to your friends and family.” —Books Monthly Discover the recipes for Mrs. Rooke’s Very Good Plum Cake and Lady Harbord’s Marigold Cheese. Learn how to preserve gooseberries “as green as they grow” and make Sir Theodore Colladon’s Peach Flower Syrup. Feast on Lady St. Quintin’s Dutch Pudding and Mrs. Eall’s Candied Cowslips. Then wash it all down with Lady Strickland’s Strong Mead or some Right Red Dutch Currant Wine. These are just some of the delightful Georgian recipes found in the receipt books of Sabine Winn, the eighteenth-century Swiss-born wife of Sir Rowland Winn, 5th Baronet Nostell of the impressive Palladian mansion, Nostell Priory in Yorkshire. Using centuries-old cookbooks, newspaper clippings, old family recipes and contributions from noble friends, Lady Winn created a wonderfully eclectic collection of mouthwatering dishes that are presented in this new volume for modern readers to enjoy. Mistrustful of English doctors, Sabine’s receipt books also contain scores of remedies for a whole series of complaints, such as: The Best Thing in the World for Languishing Spirits or Fatigue after a Journey; Mrs Aylott’s Excellent Remedy for Colic; Aunt Barrington’s Cure for Pleurisy; An Approved Medicine to Drive the Scurvy or any other Ill Humour out of a Man’s Body; and A Diet Drink to Cure all Manner of Hurts and Wounds. “I found the herbal use in the recipes intriguing, creative, and sometimes delightfully odd . . . provides an interesting slice of 18th century Georgian life in England.” —American Herb Association Quarterly