Delaware Valley Archivists Group

From Margaret: The papers hold recipes gathered by Martha Morris, her daughter Elizabeth Canby Morris, and her daughter-in-law Jane Rhoads Morris.  Relatives copied out recipes to exchange, and one of Martha’s aunts copied an entire book of recipes for her in anticipation of Martha’s marriage.  The Morris women also cut out recipes from newspapers, and Martha Morris pasted an entire cookbook from such scissored scraps.  All three women sought out recipes throughout their lives. The following transcribed recipes “date themselves.”  Recipes for invalids are numerous with such recipes stressing somewhat bland bellywashes.  “Cousin E.’s” lamb broth is a close relative of beef tea, a sickroom standby of the nineteenth century.  The hundreds called for in the Spiced Oysters recipes harkens to the days when the mollusks were cheap and plentiful. Cousin E. Gill’s soup for Invalids, 1883 2 lbs. neck of mutton – remove the fat – 1 gal. of water, 4 large onions, one carrot, about 1 lb. stewed tomatoes, 1 potato, a little cayenne pepper, & salt to taste* — after skimming, put in the juice of half a lemon. In celery season a stalk improves it. *Boil four hours; use cold water.  Spiced Oysters 200 oysters 2 doz. Cloves 5 dos. Allspice Mace, pepper, and salt to taste. Strain the liquor, add the oysters, spice, pepper and half a pint of vinegar, place them over a slow fire and as soon as they boil take off. -E M Nicholson One observation made by this cataloguer who also cooks is that the recipes are clean – few food stains or spills.   More information about the servants is becoming known so we might have a better idea of who did the actual cooking.  Whoever the cooks were – the Morris women or their servants – used copies or protected the originals well.  Other references to food and dining found in the Morris family papers refer to dinners the Morrises attended while traveling or celebrating important occasions.  These meals often reflect a more formal practice of dining than the Morrises probably would have practiced in their home.  Marriott Morris enclosed the two R.M.S. “Majestic” menus below in a 23 Sept 1890 letter to his “Aunt Hetty” Bellah written on R.M.S. “Majestic” letterhead.  He enthused about the ship:  “Below is the grand saloon, with tables where 360 people can dine at once, the walls and ceilings carved and decorated with most exquisite taste.  … The meals are splendid, better than any I ever saw at a hotel, and there is a surprising variety in the menu.  We have now 1700 people on board, just think of it! a little world in itself.” 1890 Breakfast Menu for the R.M.S. Majestic 1890 Lunch Menu for the R.M.S. Majestic  Alas, Jane Rhoads Morris on her honeymoon voyage to Europe in 1897 on the U.S.M.S. “St. Paul” felt some seasickness, did not eat a great deal, and barely discussed the food.  Still, she enclosed the 22 June menu in a letter to her mother and sister.  1897 Dinner Menu for the U.S.M.S. St. Paul From Dana: The great care taken by the Morris women to collect, share, and preserve their recipes reflects a great deal about women’s relationships in the late nineteenth century.  As Janet Theophano writes in her 2002 book, Eat My Words: Reading Women’s Lives Through the Cookbooks They Wrote, testing recipes and building cookbooks (as Martha Morris’s aunt did for her) helped women create a sense of community and shared memory.  According to Theophano, cookbooks and recipes were often littered with notations in a variety of different handwritings, indicating that a number of women within a family group had worked together to refine the recipes over time (11).  This communality is certainly evident in the Morris women’s recipes.  In one Morris recipe for Lemon Pie (which I attempted to make—see “Adventures in Victorian Cooking”), a notation to “bake in a pretty slow oven” appears on the bottom of the recipe in a clearly different handwriting, indicating that it was shared and refined within the Morris family.  The refinement of these recipes also points to another interesting fact—whether the Morris women knew it or not, the recipes they collected were part of a growing nineteenth century cooking revolution.  In her 1968 book With Bold Knife and Fork, M. F. K. Fisher writes that recipes from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were typically governed by the “rule of thumb” method.  For example, she notes a 1669 recipe for Herring Pye: “Put great store of sliced onions, with Currants and Raisins of the sun both above and under the Herrings, and store of butter, and so bake,” (Fisher, 16).  By 1816, a British movement, led by Dr. William Kitchiner, and, later, Mrs. Isabella Beeton, encouraged women to include accurate measures of ingredients, preparation times, and serving sizes in their recipes.  By the end of the nineteenth century, the movement was cemented in America when Fannie Merritt Farmer published The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, which “insisted with clinical sternness that level and standardized measurements be used,” (Fisher, 18-19).  Thus, the Morris family recipes cited above include measurements and directions that could be translated fairly easily by the twenty-first century cook (if they could find “neck of mutton” in the grocery store, that is!). The dinner menus included above are also interesting, as they reflect the intricate practice of Victorian formal dining.  According to historians Wendell and Wes Schollander in their book Forgotten Elegance: The Art, Artifacts, and Peculiar History of Victorian and Edwardian Dining in America (2002), dining in this time period was a complex cultural performance meant to impart an impression of class, wealth, and prestige.  Planning for a formal dinner party began weeks before the actual event.  Invitations were sent on engraved stationary and the woman of the house worked with her servants to carefully plan seating arrangements, the order of food service, and attire for everyone from the lady and gentleman of the house to the lowliest servant.  Once the evening of the meal arrived, guests were treated to a carefully planned meal, consisting of as many as fifteen courses.   To make matters more complicated, each course was associated with a proper place setting and silver.  In fact, the Schollanders list as many as twenty possible types of spoons that could be employed in a given meal (82-89)!