Friday, January 29, 2021

Medical and culinary manuscripts digitized


Recipes and Remedies: Manuscript Cookbooks is a new Digital Collections & Exhibits website at the New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM). Manuscript Cookbooks Survey is a great source to find manuscripts in libraries, his. soc. and museums.

11 17th-19th century culinary manuscripts have been digitized, which contain culinary, medical and household recipes. Other strictly medical manuscripts include instructions for remedies and to make medicines. This is fantastic news for researchers.

The NYAM library opened in 1847 and has over 10,000 food/health related items. And what a collection! The library owns one - there are only two - De re coquinaria by Apicius, a Roman cookbook. HERE For more information and to view the works at the NYAM HERE

Medical receipts were found in handwritten manuscripts (some attributed, such as "Dr. Pue" in Maryland) and printed cookbooks. In 1819, wealthy Rosalie Calvert of Maryland complained in a letter that their doctor "makes us prepare all the remedies."

Stephen Schmidt has written about the collection - one article is "English-Language Manuscript Cookbooks" HERE This Saturday he is speaking about Manuscript Cookbooks and their Audience HERE

Schmidt is co-creator and principal researcher and writer of the amazing resource Manuscript Cookbooks Survey. It contains two databases. One on pre-1865 English language manuscript cookbooks held in US libraries, historical associations and museums. There is also a database of kitchen artifacts which would have been used in these manuscripts. There are also well written posts, a glossary, adapted recipes and more. HERE

Vaccines in 1790! The image portrays Edward Jenner vaccinating his son in December of 1790 for smallpox. (Click to enlarge) NYAM article on Edward Jenner and the Development of the Smallpox Vaccine HERE

Past talks

Oc 20 Wed 12-1:30 Prince Henry's sweet tooth? How to shop for a 1612 banquet and bring it alive in the present. Dr Sara Pennell. U of Warwick Food GRP HERE. TAPE may be HERE or HERE. great details
Manuscript recipe book c1610 U of Indiana. Confectionary and cookery, comfeits prices - allmond confeits 16d, synamon and ginger 20d and ambergris or muscadines 4s; price of gold leaf and where to buy, and final 4 pages a listing Several sorts of sweetmeats fitting for a bankquett HERE

May 13 Thur 1:30 The Earliest Botanic Gardens in the Middle East. Shahina Ghazanfar by London Natural History Society HERE TAPE HERE

Jan 30 Sat 11 Manuscript Cookbooks and their Audience...books written for an audience, many of their puzzling features are illuminated. ... messages relayed by inscriptions; the use of printed-book features such as pagination and indexes;...and the rationales for borrowing recipes from print. Steve Schmidt. New York Academy of Medicine Library. HERE TAPE HERE

Jan 30 Sat 3-3:45 Tea: Tradition and Medicine. Chinese medicine, history, the evergreen Camellia sinensis plant. Victor Mair, Tracey Wang Stuligross. Penn Museum PA $5 with kit HERE TAPE HERE

Feb 18 Thur 5:30-7 Creating Cookbooks: Networks of Recipe Readers and Writers in England, 1300–1700. Dr. Sarah Peters Kernan. The Institute of Historical Research (IHR) UK HERE TAPE HERE

Feb 22 Mon 1:30-3 Unlocking the Medieval Medicine Cabinet. The AncientBiotics project consortium “datamine historical medical texts to uncover patterns of natural product usage, and to identify, reconstruct and test remedies…” Dr Freya Harrison. British Society for the History of Pharmacy HERE TAPE HERE

Mar 4 Thur 10-12 Revealing Recipes: Top Tips from Early Modern Women – Workshop. Household medicinal recipes, power of remedy books, Wellcome recipe collection, transcribing, digitizing, conserving. Early Modern Recipes Online Collective, Royal College of Physicians and the Wellcome Collection. HERE TAPE HERE

Ap 12 Mon 11:30-12:30 Interpreting Food Before ‘Farm to Table’. The four year project Before ‘Farm to Table’: Early Modern Foodways and Culture. Dr. Amanda Herbert (Folger Library). Digital Materialities Webinar series #6. Material Culture @LarcaParis HERE TAPE HERE

National Museum of Civil War Medicine many TAPES HERE

Civil War Medicinal Gardens. Greg Susla, PharmD FCCM. National Museum of Civil War Medicine. “Restoration of the Pry House Medicinal Garden ppt 10:35 included a selected list of early medicinal gardens June 9 TAPE HERE

Pry House Medicinal Herb Garden. Near the Antietam battlefield. Details, images… National Museum of Civil War Medicine. HERE

What the Medieval Doctor Ordered. "talk and quiz on medieval medicine in Ireland and Scandinavia." University of Cambridge. Being Human Festival. UK HERE 3 short talks Nov 13. "Scandinavia and Medieval Medicine: Remedies, Recipes and Charms" TAPE HERE Irish HERE and HERE

Forbidden Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and Censorship in Early Modern Italy. By author Hannah Marcus. 16th -17th cen. The Grolier Club Dec 3 Past TAPES HERE 1 1/2 hr; and Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography. NV 18 HERE

Renaissance Medicinal Recipes. Eye medicine from Ophthalmodouleia by Georg Bartisch in 1583. Truhlsen-Marmor Museum of the Eye Dec 16 HERE TAPE may be HERE

Christmas Past, Christmas Present. early recipe books treatments for hangovers and over indulging. Charlotte Holmes. 2d talk on genetics of family dynamics by Kevin O’Dell. Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh Dec 9 TAPE HERE and info HERE

Medieval Life Spotlight: Cooking. Free Library Rare Book Department Feb 2 TAPE HERE

Just the Tonic - A natural history of tonic water. by authors Kim Walker, Mark Nesbitt. [the Dec talk was not taped, but one for the Linnean Society of London Feb 2020: The Botanical History of the Gin & Tonic “history of botany, medicine, empire and drinking to discover how the cinchona tree came together with alcohol and soda to create the perfect gin and tonic.” TAPE HERE

Sugar Machine: Medical Technologies and Plantation Legacies in the Caribbean Diabetes Epidemic. Dr. Amy Moran-Thomas. LACIS, UW-Madison. Nov 10 HERE TAPE HERE

Health, the body and food. The Intoxicating Liquor Act 1923. Vegetarians and Anti-Vivisectionists in England, 1950-1980 . Food History Seminar - Institute of Historical Research. Nov 12 HERE TAPE Tapes HERE

Culinary Tales for Your Ails. Chrissie Perella. Historical Medical Library’s collection of recipe books. The Mütter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia Oct 6 HERE / TAPE HERE

Se 1 Wed 2&7 Representations of Health in the World of Jane Austen. “William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine, the most popular domestic health handbook 1769… health as shown in the social exchanges in the world of Jane Austen in her novel Emma and other novels” Julie Miller. History Indoors UK HERE. TAPE HERE

More info
"Recipes and Remedies: Manuscript Cookbooks" digital works at NYAM HERE

Transcribing digitalized manuscripts from home, blog post HERE

Image: Edward Jenner vaccinating his son, held by Mrs Jenner; a maid rolls up her sleeve, a man stands outside holding a cow. Coloured engraving by C. Manigaud after E Hamman. Wellcome Collection.

Mistress of Riversdale, The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.

©2021 Patricia Bixler Reber
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