Published in Windlesora 04 (1985)
© WLHG
One of the treasures of the Berkshire Record Office is Mrs. Loder’s Cookbook. This is a manuscript book of some 45 pages in which Mrs. Loder recorded her prized recipes, not only for cooking, but ‘cures’ for the ailments of both man and beast. Horses and cows were very important to her, and both needed to be kept in condition. She was the second wife of the Rev. John Loder, a rector of the ancient church of Hinton Waldrist, which is a tiny village 6 miles east of Faringdon, Berkshire, in the valley of the Ock. Mrs. Loder’s friends and relations favourite
recipes are also to be found in the book, which seems to have been compiled between 1777 and about 1800.
To Jugg a Rabbit (Earl of Abingdon)
Cut your rabbit in large pieces, frie them brown, put them in a stew pan with some good broth, two or three small onions, four cloves, some allspice, with some sweet herbs, and about half a pound of bacon, upon them, stew them till they are tender, then take them out and strain the liquor, then mix up some flower and butter, then make it boil; put in a glass of port wine and serve it up.
Cure for Corns
Bathe the part if not inconvenient in warm water, apply an ivy leaf previously steeped for 24 hours in vinegar. Repeat the steeped leaf each day till the corn is eradicated and the space it occupied becomes smooth which in most cases will be a week.
The book is indexed as “The Mary Loder Cookery Notebook” in the Berkshire archives, zl 4; D/EIS.
Ann Brett
Windsor Local History Group 