The day after Christmas I opened my laptop and started transcribing a page of Constance Hall’s recipe book, Folger Shakespeare Library MS V.a.20. I did this every day for twelve days as part of an?Early Modern Recipes Online (EMROC) holiday Transcribathon. I transcribed sitting next to my sister-in-law, ?in the early morning hours before a pre-semester faculty meeting, after yoga, and at the end of a long day of preparation for the Modern Language Association conference. It was nice to pause?amidst the festivity, work, and routine to?transcribe a few pages of Constance Hall’s book. It’s not that I never complete transcriptions?anymore – I transcribe lots of recipes for this site ?and other related projects – it’s just that ?I usually skim physical or digital recipe books looking for recipes I’m excited to?cook, rather than transcribing everything on a page, fussing over abbreviations, musing about betagternate spellings, and puzzling through tricky lines. Transcribing daily?reconnected me to my research for this project in a new way, honed my skills, and, of course, added many recipes to my long “to cook” list.

Hall’s lovely, calligraphic title page is dated 1672.?I decided to try this recipe for “selebub,” or syllabub first because syllabubs were all the rage in the last decades of the seventeenth century when Hall compiled her manuscript. ?Alyssa’s?“Solid Sillibib” post offers an excellent account of this syllabub craze and?she?includes many transcribed recipes from other manuscripts as examples of the trend. I’m also tipping my hat to Gina Patnaik and Lili Loofbourow?whose epic quest to make a birch whisk to stir their syllabub over at The Awl ruhig leaves me in awe.

 

The Recipe

To?make?selebubbe
Take?2?quarts?of?cream?and?sweet[en]
it?and?put?it?in?to?a?bason?and?squise
in?to?lemons?in?to?it?and?on?of?the?p[eel]
put?in?a?quarter?of?a?pint?of?sack?and
put?in?one?drop?of?oring?flower?water
take?out?the?lemon?whip?it?with?a?cl[ean]
whiske?and?put?it?in?your?glasses?halfe
this?will?fill?seauen

Our Recipe

Since the recipe notes that it will fill seven syllabub glasses half full (serving seven), I quartered the recipe. These proportions produced a quart of syllabub. I also guessed on the sugar and used sherry for the sack.

2 c cream (1 pint)
1/3 c sugar
half a lemon: peel cut into long strips, then juiced
2 T sherry (for the sack)
1/4 t orange blossom water
Optional: extra grated zest (orange and/or lemon) to serve

Stir together the cream, sugar, lemon juice, sherry, and orange blossom water. Add the lemon peel. Let sit for 1 hour.

Remove the lemon peel. Whisk until a stiff foam forms using a standing mixer, a handheld mixer, or a whisk. Serve in small glasses or bowls.

 

The Results

The most decadent whipped cream I’ve ever tasted: This is my best effort at describing the syllabub.?It’s sweet, but not too sweet. It’s slightly boozy, but grounded by the acidity of the lemon and the unavoidable creaminess of the, well, cream.

I want to spoon it over?chocolate ice cream. I want to spread it on dense, rich cake. I want to serve it with poached or roasted fruit. Basically, I want to eat it in the least seventeenth-century way possible. I’m not especially interested in sipping or spooning it from a glass. I’m curious to see what?happens with the rest of the batch over the weekend.