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Space on my floor! Space on my floor! And four cookbooks to go back neatly onto the bookshelf.

The first one is Mrs Glasse's "The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy; Excelling any Thing of the Kind ever yet Published." It first appeared in 1747, with an American edition in 1805. This cookbook is so heavily quoted by all and sundry that I feel bad even opening it, as if I am just copying everyone else. Glasse has recipes for ice cream and chocolate (oops, did I say chocolate - gotta check those ones out, NOW).

Sham Chocolate (squint and you can read this as Shame Chocolate, because it has nothing of chocolate in it - would make a nice bedtime drink though):

"Take a pint of milk, boil it over a slow fire, with some whole cinnamon, and sweeten it with Lisbon sugar; beat up the yolks of three eggs, throw all together into a chocolate-pot, and mill it one way, or it will turn. Serve it up in chocolate-cups."

What's cool about this recipe is it shows what people did who couldn't obtain the luxury item.

Glasse has two actual recipes for chocolate on pp 261-2 and they are quite different. I want to try the first one but it's impossible. Too many of the ingredients are hard to get (and two are evil and unPC). For a start, it takes the actual cocoa nuts. You also need anise, long pepper, cinnamon, almond, pistachio, achiote, musk, ambergris, loaf sugar, nutmeg and orange or rose water. The second recipe is way more boring, with just cinnamon and cardamom and sugar.

The next book in my pile grandly claims to be the "The first modern cookery book" by "The Eminent Meastro Martino of Como." This is a recent arrival and I might have to withhold judgement till I have worked through it. It has some good stuff, but the cover claims this guy was the first celebrity chef, which is not even close to the truth. It's a translation with no original next to it (which always bugs me - I like to check that translators and I agree on ingredients and we occasionally don't and I like to find out what has been added by the translator to clarify the text). This means this book is a bit of a mystery. I can't use it for research and I need to find a text of the original before I can use it too much in cooking. No doubt the introduction and notes will be handy. And the book itself is fine reading, especially since the random-opening approach to find a quote gives me "pork meat is not healthful - no matter how you cook it". This is the perfect quote because the last two books in this stack are Jewish cookbooks.

The first is English "The Jewish Manual or Practical Information in Jewish & Modern Cookery with a collection of valuable recipes & hints relating to the toilette. Edited by a Lady." 1846 The second is American "Mrs. Esther Levy's Jewish Cookery Book on Principles of Economy adapted for Jewish Housekeepers with Medicinal Recipes and Other Valuable Information relative to Housekeeping and Domestic Management." 1871. One day I will talk about Jewish cookbooks (since they have a special place in my heart) and that's when you will get the rude comments and cute quotes. Until then, isn't it sufficient that I have a book on my shelves written by "a Lady". The closest I will get to being one.

NASA and Apollo

The Apollo tapes are not lost, says NASA, "Despite the challenges of the search." http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo_tapes.html And besides, there are first generation video copies round - not as good quality but they are not lost (like the original tapes, which are also not lost?). They think they might be able to rummage up the equipment to read the non-missing tapes as well. Bonus.

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One more book to go away this afternoon and then I can read articles from the bibliography I did yesterday. Or answer mail. Or both. Maybe at the same time.

This last one my father bought at an auction when I was a kid. My father loved auctions. He especially loved miscellaneous boxes of old books. This volume came with "Toddy Scores Again" and volume 9 of Josephus. Mum has hung on to the Josephus.

Anyhow, technically, this is not quite a cookbook. It is a superior volume. It indicates this clearly. Tattered, but full of dignity. It is by G Francis F.L.S. and is "The Dictionary of Practical Receipts; containing the Arcana of Trade and Manufacture; Domestic Economy; Artistical, Ornamental & Scientific Processes; Pharmaceutical and Chemical Preparations &tc. &tc. &tc." It was published in 1848.

The difference between this and a cookbook in my childhood is that a parent had to approve before I got to make things from this one.

This is all my own fault. I started with a fireworks recipe, you see, and had trouble getting the ingredients. I asked my parents about obtaining them (as one does when under ten) and from then on it was "Check with us before you make anything." This meant that jellies and jams were more likely than recipes involving interesting chemical mixtures.

My sisters and I manage to persuade our parents into a whole winter of invisible inks once - we had little containers of crucial chemicals and took up the whole kitchen and dining room with papers that said things that were terribly undecipherable. Our inks were perfect and our handwriting entirely illegible. My sisters now have legible handwriting. Growing up brings some blessings. Instead of readable handwriting I have friends with senses of humour and a mother who claims that my letters can be dispensed at the chemist.

I opened the book at random and found a recipe for a handgrenade. Hartshorn drink is on the next page and looks a little more suitable for blogging. "Boil together, burnt horns 2 oz., gum Arabic 1 oz., water 3 points, until they are reduced to 2 pints. This, when strained and sweetened, is a emulcent, mucilaginous, nourishing drink, good in coughs, &c." Be grateful I didn't open at p. 227, which contains malt, malt vinegar and remedies for mange.

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One more book to round the day off and then I am off to bed. I have my little list of works I have to check in libraries tomorrow and only one of them is out on loan, which is a small miracle. I am still awake, which is a rather more major miracle. In a half hour I won't be awake, I promise.

The book in front of me has my favourite quince jelly recipe. It's by Nostradamus. I bought it at a street market in Provence, but it's a Bloomsbury edition. Yes, before Bloomsbury produced Harry Potter, they did delightful hardback translations of recipes for scented water and delicacies by everyone's #1 physician/prophet. In my dreams I have the original untranslated two volumes to puzzle over, but in the meantime this 'highlights' version will do. It's a modernised version of a sixteenth century translation. Imperfect, but with lovely illustrations from a Leonhard Fuchs manuscript.