The Johnson Family Treasury is based on a manuscript found in the Una Abrahamson Collection at the University of Guelph.
The collection provides insight into the history of medicine and food from all sorts of angles, and has been purchased by various organization throughout the world.
The collection has been traced to Herefordshire but wound up in Guelph due to unknown circumstances.
The manuscript’s editor, Nathalie Cooke (a professor of English and cultural studies at McGill University) will be speaking at the University of Guelph archives on Dec. 13.
The discussion will run from 7 to 8:30pm, where the original manuscript will be on display.
The Johnson Family Treasury contains a collection of food, lifestyle and health tips from 1741 to 1848, involving everything from toads to pigeon fricassee.
Based on an 18th-century “recipes and remedies” the Johnson Family Treasury has been drawing the attention of food and medical historians across the world.
The collection features foods dating back to Shakespeare’s day as well as “newer” food items for an age of colonialism, like oranges and limes.
There are recipes for wines aplenty, as well as remedies for all manner of human ailment, from hangovers (the remedy then was known euphemistically as “surfeit water”) to cancer, inflammation, infected wounds, and difficult childbirth. There are also remedies for illnesses that are less common now, like gout, ague, dropsy, “the green sickness” and whooping cough.
For more information about the book visit http://www.rocksmills.com/the-johnson-family-treasury.html.
