Elinor Fettiplace’s Receipt book
by Hilary Spurling
Buy on AmazonHilary Spurling inherited from an old aunt a little leather-bound manuscript volume, which in fact contained all the recipes of someone called Elinor Fettiplace, who wrote it out in 1604. And so Spurling turned it into a book with about 200 of the recipes, with her comments and the background and history of Elinor Fettiplace and her family. Fettiplace was the daughter of a man who lived at Sapperton in Gloucestershire, so she came from a good country house background. She married into the Fettiplace family who were Oxfordshire gentry. This book enables you to see the Elizabethans through their food in a very intriguing way, and she actually tried out a lot of the recipes herself. They’re not just recipes for eating – there are recipes for medicine, and recipes for scent: Elizabethans loved to put very intense smells into pots which you could open up and the smell would come out. May 18, 2010. Updated: July 18, 2023 Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected] Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you've enjoyed this interview, please support us by donating a small amount .