In the 18th century wealthy families would often have a handwritten book of recipes which were used in their household. These recipes would be prepared by cooks. The books contained a mixture of savoury and sweet recipes for everyday meals and entertaining for special occasions. By our standards, the ingredients seem very large amounts but families would have been larger and included servants. Many of the recipes would have been gathered over a long period, some of them collected when visiting other families or attending events.

To the modern reader, these recipes are difficult to follow as they give few instructions on how to create the dish and do not indicate precise temperatures or times for cooking.

As well as recipes, the books often contain “cures” or suggested remedies for various ailments. This was very common. In her letters to her aunt, Margaret Widdrington, Hannah Glasse mentions a cure for the plaque as well as a Lewers tincture she intends to sell in London and further afield. Similar recipe books gave Hannah Glasse the idea for her publication – the Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747) – which contained not only her own recipes but those gathered from others. Her cookery book became a reference book for many cooks in the late 18th and 19th centuries.