Accession No. RARE.2022.0030: Purchase, November 2021
[identification of item], Manuscript Recipe Book (Including Agricultural and Household Information), Possibly Compiled In or Near Marietta, Ohio by Mrs. Ebenezer Zane, SPEC.RARE.MMS.0240, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Ohio State University
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Processed by Rachel Hammer, 2022 July; Finding Aid written by Rachel Hammer, 2022 July
Mrs. Ebenezer Zane possibly lived in the Ohio/West Virginia area around the 1840s.
Recipes are a set of instructions for preparing a particular dish, including a list of the ingredients required. They were written for many centuries for food dishes as well as cosmetics and medicinal cures, but the compilation of recipes into cookbooks and recipe books became popular in 17th century English homes when England’s literacy rate among women improved.
In the 19th century, the variety in topics within a recipe book was not an uncommon occurrence. They included recipes for needs other than food, such as medicinal and other household chores. Published cookbooks and periodicals would not only list recipes, but contained practical guides to running a household. This included advice on agriculture because most Americans still lived on farms and in rural areas in the 19th century.
Manuscript Recipe Book (Including Agricultural and Household Information), Possibly Compiled In or Near Marietta, Ohio by Mrs. Ebenezer Zane contains one circa 1840s book filled with agricultural advice in the first quarter and then some household advice at the very end. Between are numerous recipes. Most entries are handwritten, but clippings from publications have been sewn into a couple pages as well. There are also a few loose pieces of manuscript with more recipes written on them, a small calligraphic card for Mrs. Ebenezer Zane, and an 1844 program for "Order of Exercises at the Junior Exhibition of Marietta College."