Healing Words
Our new exhibition, Healing words is now open, and it’s all about recipe books!
What comes to mind when you think of recipe books? For me it’s Delia Smith’s complete cookery course, an encyclopaedia of food-related knowledge that still informs my Christmas-cake-baking activities each year. The copy that sits on my bookshelf was published the year after I was born, and belonged to my grandmother. I treasure it because it is a glimpse into a past world, where post-war prudence meant every part of a vegetable or animal was valued and used, and the simple ingredients in my grandmother’s kitchen garden were whizzed up using Delia’s culinary wizardry to create the spectacular cottage pies and summer puddings of my childhood.
Index page from MS193, Pharmacopoeia in the hand of D Champion (1816)
The recipe books of the past contained similarly spectacular gastronomical gestures – but they were often so much more than that. Perhaps unexpectedly, a typical recipe book from the 17th or 18th century might also include recipes for household products used for cleaning or poisoning vermin, instructions for preserving ingredients, preparations for everyday useful items, and perhaps most importantly, remedies for treating illnesses and preserving health. They were not just collections of recipes; they were encyclopaedias for survival.
Healing words showcases highlights from the RCP’s collection of over 40 recipe, or ‘receipt’ books, dating from the 16th to the 18th century. Like many exhibitions, Healing words is the culmination of a long-running project: in 2023, we completed the digitisation of these recipe books, which visitors can now browse via the fabulous online resource that is the Internet Archive.
Photography by John Chase, @ RCP
The recipe books in Healing words are all handwritten, often by several people. They are collaborative works, often passed through families and amongst friends and neighbours. They come in all shapes and sizes, some professionally bound, some made at home. Some were owned by aristocracy, while most would have been used in the kitchens of working people, who learned the recipes from others and wrote them down for posterity. They are each unique, combining generations’ worth of knowledge about the properties of plants, the seasons, how best to treat symptoms and how to optimise health.
Ink recipe from MS506, A collection of medical and culinary receipts in a 17th-century hand
With such a splendid collection, and so much rich content to choose from, it was very challenging deciding which books to display in the exhibition. In the end, one of the main reasons for choosing a book was its value – what did this particular book, or particular recipe mean for its owner? In the same way that Delia transports me to my grandmother’s kitchen table, what did the recipe books give to their owners? And what do they tell us today about life in the past?
For example, this ink recipe shows us how a simple, everyday tool could be made in the home, perhaps as a means of saving money. But its real value for the person in possession of the recipe – perhaps a housewife or a servant, because the owners of these books tended to be women – was that it provided the means for creating a tool for literacy. This recipe gave its owner information that might enable them to practice their literacy skills, perhaps gaining a degree of confidence, independence and power as a result.
Multiple styles of handwriting, from MS501, A book of medical recipes in various hands (17th century)
Why is it significant that recipe books contained multiple examples of handwriting? The collaborative nature of their production means that information that was previously shared orally was now written down and disseminated even further. Women listened to, wrote down, shared, copied and amended recipes, further honing their literacy skills and increasing their authority within their household.
Illustration of elecampane, from Elizabeth Blackwell, A curious herbal (1737-39)
Elizabeth Blackwell’s Curious Herbal, containing illustrations and descriptions of 500 botanical specimens, isn’t just an extraordinary example of one woman’s passion for information – it is a vital resource for the properties of plants, meaning people could understand and make the most of the ingredients they could grow in their gardens. This became crucial for enabling people to preserve ingredients for the winter months, create their own remedies in the home, and care for their families.
‘probatum est’ at the bottom-right of the right-hand page, from MS688, A book of surgerie and phisick of Mistress Honorie Henslow (1601)
The circulation of tried-and-tested remedies via recipe books became a crucial means of community-based healthcare, particularly for those who could not afford to visit a doctor. The real meaning behind the simple words ‘probatum est’ or ‘it is proved’ is that people could trust the source behind the remedy – in many cases the recipe books recorded medicines prescribed by doctors to aristocracy, or made up by apothecaries.
A collection of medical recipes, calendar, etc., in French [1512]
This recipe book is tiny! This is important because this book probably could have fitted in a petticoat pocket, meaning its owner had ready access to the tools and information needed for survival and keeping healthy all year round. If only we had such amazing devices today…!
Come and visit Healing words at the RCP’s headquarters in Regent’s Park, London, until 25 July 2025, and learn how these unassuming volumes actually show us a huge deal about life in early modern England, literacy and social standing, the consumption of commodities, and the functioning of community healthcare outside of the formal medical sphere.
Please be aware, this exhibition, and some of the books linked to in this article, contain descriptions of cruelty to animals and medical procedures on children.
Sarah Backhouse
Exhibitions Officer