Kislak Center Recipe Books

About

The Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania houses a wide variety of recipe books among its collections. These include culinary recipes, comprising food and drink; medicinal recipes, for both humans and animals; household recipes, for cleaning supplies, inks, and other materials used in a home setting; chemical and alchemical recipes; and industrial recipes. Some of these recipes include apothecary and alchemical symbols. The recipe books selected for this transcription project cover most of these types of recipes, providing an opportunity to test out various transcription challenges associated with this material.

Works

Arts and sciences; chemistry.

[England], 1777. Collection of recipes (numbered 1-253 with many errors) for alchemical and practical applications such as making candles, butter, varnish, many types of ink (including a recipe for "magic ink", p. 201), sealant for waterproofing shoes (p. 15), cement for mending broken china or...

255 pages: 100% complete (9% indexed, 100% transcribed)

Hannah M. Keen's receipt book, UPenn Ms. Codex 633

Hannah M. Keen lived at 3312 Race Street in West Philadelphia. Most recipes in this manuscript cookbook are for breads, puddings, pies, and cakes, including a "West Phila. Cake" and "Railroad Cake." The source for a number of the recipes is "Widdifield's," presumably Widdifield's new cook book:...

131 pages: 100% complete (59% indexed, 100% transcribed)

Recipe book :; [manuscript].

[United States], 1800-1843. Comprised chiefly of culinary recipes from the middle Atlantic region of the United States with recipes for rock fish, shad, sturgeon, crabs, and oysters, as well as recipes for preparing wild ducks, meats, pickles, preserves, cakes and biscuits, keeklings, puddings,...

211 pages: 100% complete (2% indexed, 100% transcribed)

Recipe book, ca.1856, UPenn Ms. Coll. 392

UPenn Ms. Coll. 392. Comprises culinary recipes for puddings, custards, pies, dessert sauces, ice cream, cakes, cookies, beef, fish, chicken, pigeons, tripe, curing hams, and several for Theo Hook's punch. Several items laid in including menus for large events, one for a "Vestry Supper;" one is...

231 pages: 100% complete (70% indexed, 100% transcribed)

[Recipe book], UPenn Ms. Codex 1038

UPenn Ms. Codex 1038. Collection of recipes for desserts, meats, preserves, "soops," and condiments, including Indian-influenced dishes such as curry and pickles. Some recipes are attributed, and Paxton, Baker, Ward, Pridham, Simeon, and Sayer are surnames that appear repeatedly. Included...

165 pages: 100% complete (12% indexed, 100% transcribed)

[Recipe book]; [manuscript].; Receipt book

[England, 1780-1850] Begins with an 18th-century, undated section of medical recipes, primarily for horses and other animals, but with some remedies for worms in children, ague, heart burn, rheumatism, etc. (p. 1-26), with a listing of the contents of this section on f. i recto. Remainder of...

169 pages: 100% complete (12% indexed, 100% transcribed)

Incomplete Works

Subject Categories

People, Places

Transcription Conventions

Multiple Languages: If there is more than one language in the document, transcribe what you can and use the <unclear>LanguageName</unclear> for the language that you do not transcribe with the name of the language. <unclear>Hebrew</unclear>
Capitalization: Maintain original
Dates: Enclose them in the date tag. <date>1896</date>
Deletions: Use Strike.
Gap: Used for a gap in the transcription such as damage to the page or a large block of space. <gap></gap>
Heading: Used for obvious headings. <head>This is a Heading.</head> This is a Heading.
Hyphenation: Preserve hyphens (including "-" characters) at the ends of lines. If a word continues on a new line, preserve the hyphen and then follow the line breaks rule by hitting return once to indicate a new line and continue transcribing the hyphenated word.
Italics: Used for italicized text. This text is italicized This text is italicized.
Line Breaks: Hit return once after each line ends. Two returns indicate a new paragraph, which is usually indentation following the preceding sentence in the original. The times at the end of each entry should get their own paragraph, since the software does not support indentation in the transcriptions.
Punctuation: Add modern periods, but don't add punctuation like commas and apostrophes.
Superscript: Used for superscript text. xls xl^s
Subscript: Used for subscript text. xls xl_s
Symbols: For apothecary and alchemical symbols, use these symbols followed by the meaning of the symbol in brackets: Rx [recipe]; ℈ [scruple]; ʒ [dram]; ʒs [half dram]; ℥ [ounce]; ℥s [half ounce]; ℔ [pound].
Strike: Used for deleted or struck through text. <strike>Morais</strike> ~~Morais~~
Unclear: Used for uncertain text. Transcriber should enter their best guess, with the option to replace individual letters with periods. <unclear>a chicin P</unclear> a chicin P
Underline: Used for underlined text. This text is underlined. This text is underlined.