Sunday Supper - a trip through the archives

A chance encounter with a mention of a recipe in the catalogue of the National Records of Scotland [formerly National Archives of Scotland] got me wondering how many recipes from former days might be recorded in the archives.  

A quick look through the online catalogue for the Scottish archives at http://www.nas.gov.uk/onlineCatalogue/ gave some intriguing examples:

Some of the 18th century recipes sound fairly reasonable (don't really fancy the boar's head or snail water myself!):

GD150/3413: Recipe to cure a boar's head   

RH15/10/18a: Recipe for making snail water 

GD16/58/5: Recipe for orange wine

RH9/17/191: Recipe for baking herrings. Taken from my Lady Glenorchy's book

GD68/2/156: Recipe for making ginger wine

By the 19th and 20th centuries, we have moved on to some quite tasty sounding offerings:

GD172/2880: Recipe for buttermilk cheese

GD113/5/106c: a recipe for raspberry vinegar

GD157/1744: Recipe for sponge cake

But I think that my two favourites have to be a couple of undated offerings that tell us more about the politics of those who wrote them than they do about their tastebuds...

Image: Paul / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

GD24/5/162/27: A recipe for making a true whig
the ingredients guarentteed to make anyone 'as sound a whig as ever  beheaded a King, murdered a bishop or abjured a Lawfull Prince'

GD157/1384: An abusive recipe for making a presbyterian in two days
Description: `Take the roots of hipocrisie and ambitione ... ane handfull of the spirit of pride, two drams of the seed of disentione and discord ...'

Food for thought?