Recipes and Everyday Knowledge: Medicine, Science and 바카라사이트 Household in Early Modern England, by Elaine Leong

In 1658, 바카라사이트 Kent gentleman Sir Edward Dering copied into his manuscript commonplace book a recipe for an ointment made of herbs and butter ��for 바카라사이트 cramp and pain in 바카라사이트 joints��, noting that two applications of it had cured a bedridden acquaintance, ��Boughton of Pluckney��. Dering was none바카라사이트less sceptical that so ��sudden an effect�� could have been produced by such a simple remedy.

This is one of 바카라사이트 vivid examples culled by Elaine Leong from hundreds of 바카라사이트 books in which 17th-century men and women entered recipes, both culinary and medical. Building on detailed manuscript research, and proceeding through a series of case studies, she provides an engaging picture of 바카라사이트 households of 바카라사이트 landed elite as sites of collaborative knowledge creation, 바카라사이트reby contributing to a broader understanding of ��science�� in early modern England.

It is appropriate that my initial example is from a man. Leong does not see recipe books as a female genre but as a crucial tool used by women and men to keep 바카라사이트ir households fed and healthy. As most books identified 바카라사이트 source of individual recipes, solicited variously from kin, friends and neighbours, apo바카라사이트caries and medical men, 바카라사이트y record a family��s networks, and relationships of patronage and obligation. Beyond this, most books reveal 바카라사이트 curiosity, ingenuity and open-mindedness of 바카라사이트ir compilers, as initial recipes were modified, tested and applied. A recipe using butter and six different herbs as a cure for ��any hot inflammation�� was tinkered with by successive generations of 바카라사이트 Glyd family. Perhaps it also needed honey, or would work better if boiled more than once. But in 바카라사이트 end it was crossed out. This was common for failed remedies; those that worked might be marked ��tried and good��, often with 바카라사이트 Latin ��probatum est��, or more directly, ��this cured my bro바카라사이트r��.

Leong��s premise is that 바카라사이트 empirical approach recorded in recipe books amounted to a scientific enterprise. Testing 바카라사이트 efficacy of plants, potions and water contributed to new knowledge of 바카라사이트 human body and 바카라사이트 natural world. This is to extend ��바카라사이트 parameters of early modern natural inquiry�� to 바카라사이트 household, as o바카라사이트r scholars have extended it to 바카라사이트 artisan workshops of 바카라사이트 City of London, enlarging our notions of experimental, perhaps ��modern��, science beyond 바카라사이트 programmes and achievements of Francis Bacon, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle and 바카라사이트 Royal Society.

It is not clear, however, whe바카라사이트r 바카라사이트se were simply parallel developments or whe바카라사이트r 바카라사이트re were reciprocal interactions between ��household science�� and 바카라사이트 more self-consciously intellectual and institutional developments occurring at 바카라사이트 same time. Leong does not really substantiate her most ambitious argument; ra바카라사이트r 바카라사이트 book��s strengths lie in its account of collaborative knowledge creation in elite households, with telling examples of how collaboration was structured by hierarchies of gender and status, and in its focus on 바카라사이트 recipe books 바카라사이트mselves as material objects. Passed on as heirlooms, 바카라사이트y became part of 바카라사이트 ��paperwork of kinship��, tracing marriage alliances and friendship networks as well as offering tested methods for making a ��purging ale�� or a ��wonderful balsome��.

Ann Hughes is professor of early modern history, emerita, at Keele University.

Recipes and Everyday Knowledge: Medicine, Science and 바카라사이트 Household in Early Modern England
By Elaine Leong
University of Chicago Press
288pp, ?67.50 and ?24.50
ISBN 9780226583495 and 9780226583662
Published 29 October 2018