I love reading old recipes, and a little Googling led me to a cookbook from 1764, called English Housewifry Exemplified by one Elizabeth Moxon. There are over 450 recipes, which she calls “receipts,” for all manner of food and drink.
There are lots of homey little touches, as in the recipe for French Bread: “To half a peck of flour, put a full jill of new yeast, and a little salt, make it with new milk (warmer than from the cow)...”
By the way, a jill (also gill) is half a cup.
I think I may actually try this sometime:
157. To make RICE PANCAKES.
Take half a pound of rice, wash and pick it clean, cree it in fair
water till it be a jelly, when it is cold take a pint of cream and the
yolks of four eggs, beat them very well together, and put them into the
rice, with grated nutmeg and some salt, then put in half a pound of
butter, and as much flour as will make it thick enough to fry, with as
little butter as you can.
As soon as I figure out what creeing is.
And, of course, the other thing to marvel at is the absolute crap people used to eat 250 years ago. This book gives us such things as Fried Calf’s Feet in Eggs, Fricassy of Tripe, and Liver Pudding.
Also found here are answers to questions nobody will ever ask, such as how to collar a calf’s head to eat hot (or cold, your choice), how to “do chicken’s, or any fowl’s, feet,” how to pickle nasturtium buds, and how to dress ox lips.
Gag.
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