BOOK OF RECEIPTS -- 1692

This book has a wrinkled leather cover and is written on parchment. The writer was Katherin Smyth and the date was the first of June 1692. She changes the spelling of her name several times. I think, but don't know, that she was "The Lass o' Gowrie." The book is another one of those curious things Himself inherited. It can be read more easily in large.

As nearly as I can make out it is a riddle and says: This book is mine if you will know and letters ........ One is K and a letter bright and the other is S in all man fright if you joyn them cunningly to know my name you may ...... by but if you thank to spoil a miss, looks cannot ..... and there it is. Can anybody read all of it? It's very faint in places.

I suspect Katherin was an educated teenager and was, perhaps, making a book of useful information for after her marriage. If she really was "The Lass o' Gowrie," she would have been 12 when she started this book The contents are not recipes for food but rather on "How to make benginian watter, colours for hair (!), a receipt of salves for all kinds of putrification sores, how to make black Japan," and so forth.

She did another book in 1697, this time on paper and this time for food. It says,"Katherin Smyth her book" on the first page so I take it she settled on a spelling.

I thought I suffered from having to cook from scratch here, by which I mean I cannot pop out to M&S for something ready made as a break from cooking, but this book is a shocker. "First, kill a goose." That would stop me in my tracks. Others for "syrops" or "all sorts of creams" are easier.

The cookery book is more difficult to photograph or I would have used it. I had enough trouble with this one and even so, it does not make a pretty picture. I tried tripod and new lens, hand held and old lens and this is the latter.

For the record: Sun! +11 C, + 5 C at night. Sunrise: 7:41; sunset 5:21. The gardening crew is back filling in the lawn. Himself was off all morning renting a box.