The UC Santa Barbara Undergraduate Journal of History

Early modern English households produced a vast array of household recipes aimed at treating and preventing a wide variety of illnesses. Recipes were published in well-read books like Hannah Woolley’s The Supplement to the Queen-Like Closet, but they were also traded between households, creating a web of social exchange, and tested and tweaked by many recipe makers, illustrating how the home acted as a site of scientific endeavor. These household collections, now being transcripted more and more, have become a helpful source for historians looking at household economies, medical histories, and women’s participation in medicine. In this paper, I aim to contribute to the growing field of early modern recipe research through an analysis of three recipe collections: Hannah Woolley’s published recipes in The Supplement to the Queen-Like Closet, the household recipes of Margaret Baker (approx. 1675), and the recipes of Dorothy Shirley (written approx 1693/4-1721). My analysis of these sources demonstrates two main points: that recipe collections acted as living-documents, rather than a list of just the best treatments, and therefore are relics of experimentation; and that recipes further reflect interaction with outside sources and social investigation. From those two points, I conclude that recipe collections are highly personalized collections of household practices that reflect the specific social and intellectual work of household recipe makers.