1855 Handwritten Recipe Book Archive and Diary, Schaefferstown, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania

, (1855); Unique collection of handwritten 19th c. recipe books, three signed respectively as Mary A. Zimmerman, A. M. Zimmerman, or M. Zimmerman, with the first of these bearing a date of 1855. Within the texts are a number of references to other family and community members, as in "Old Mrs. Weigley’s Cake Receipt," "Mrs. Kurtz’s Ginger Cake," "Aunty Bromberger and Grandmother Rex’s Plaster For Burns And Scalds," etc. A wealth of recipes for cakes, breads, puddings, sauces, custards, pickled fruits, beverages, etc., such as Lemon Cake, Yankee Cake, Delicate Cake, Lady Cake, Queen Cake, Moonlight Cake, Funnel Cake, Fritters, Jennie Lind Cake, Sally Lunn Cake, Scotch Cake, numerous Ginger Breads and Corn Breads, Snow Balls, Baked Apple Dumplings, Shoo-Fly Pie, Jumbles, Jelly Roll Cake, Farina Plum Pudding, Coconut Pudding, Dough Pudding, Flannel Cakes, Waffles, Blackberry Syrup, Tomato Catsup, Apple Jelly, Pear Marmalade, Pickled Quince, Pickled Cantaloupe, Raspberry Vinegar, Currant Shrub, Currant Wine, Beer, etc., as well as recipes for yeast making, homemade soaps, washing compound, bluing, vegetable dyes, and home remedies, such as a wash for the hair and treatments for Scarlet Fever and Smallpox. Together with the above is a considerable store of recipes handwritten on sheets and salvaged scraps of paper or clipped from newspapers of the period. Examples include Unfermented Grape Juice (1897), Rice Pudding (1894), Grape Wine (1897), Mrs. Shaeffer’s Sugar Cake (1894), Alice Geik’s Dandelion Wine (1892), Cream Candy (1873), "No Matters," Railroad Cake (1902), Sugar Cake (1894), Pickled Citron Melon, and Yellow Tomato Marmalade. Also included are an illustrated handbill advertising Van Orsdel’s Improved Porous Plaster, and a small advertising card for Dr. Bull’s Baby Syrup, both with recipes written on their backs. Likewise, the front fragments of two 1870’s stamped envelopes addressed to Tillie Zimmerman and Millie Zimmerman at Schaefferstown have recipes written thereon -- one on the front, the other on the back. Of additional interest is the blue marbled volume, the front portion of which consists of recipes and the back portion the diary of a young girl, most probably a daughter, chronicling her first visit to Philadelphia to stay with relatives between August 30th and October 14th, 1855. In it are descriptions of trips to the City for shopping and attendance at the theater (she didn’t like it -- she much preferred the quiet country life of Schaefferstown to the urban bustle), to Kensington to see acquaintances, Germantown to visit cousins, a large horticultural and agricultural exhibit, out riding with cousin Jake to Chestnut Hill and the Wissahickon (where she was much taken by its beauty), a stop at the Log Cabin Inn to see the animals, mention of a funeral for Mr. Bidmire’s 18 year old daughter, a trip to hear Mr. Shaeffer preach at the Lutheran church, etc. Some of the dozens of relatives and friends identified are Cousin George Rex, Isadore Rex, Uncle Cyrus, Mr. Bonner, Aunt Peggy, Aunt Kitty Bockius, Annie Eberly, Amanda Bockius, Sister Mary, The Neumans, Uncle A.’s store, Dr. Reynolds, Dr. Meyers, Nerva, Mrs. Charley King, Lester, cousin Kiran, Lizzy Hinkle, et. al. A unique collection of Americana providing an inside view into the earnest lives of the rural families of 19th century Pennsylvania.