Archival Afterlives: Life, Death, and Knowledge-Making in Early Modern British Scientific and Medical Archives. Vera Keller, Anna Marie Roos, and Elizabeth Yale, eds. Scientific and Learned Cultures and Their Institutions 23. Leiden: Brill, 2018. xii + 276 pp. $140.
the dairymaid about turkeys, guidance for Rudler the gardener on planting melons, and citrus and instructions for Mrs. Goram, the only member of the household with the skills to distill the precious citron water. Leong’s interpretation of the correspondence reveals the interpersonal relationships and division of skilled labor within this household. She also demonstrates how crucial household knowledge was when transmitted over distances. Leong’s fourth chapter, “Recipe Trials in the Early Modern Household,” explores evidence of recipe use in manuscripts: marks, marginalia, cross-outs, and notes. After first considering a range of “I made it” phrases that demonstrate use and success, Leong dives deeper into cases of recipes that did not initially work (102). She convincingly shows how households engaged in recipe adaptation and salvage through repeat testing. Even recipes that repeatedly failed—the cheesecakes—were valued enough to try again either because of the social relationship to the individual who shared the recipe or the real need to prepare a medicine or food in the household. Recipes and Everyday Knowledge offers the interdisciplinary community of scholars who work on recipes meaningful avenues for future study. Readers of this journal who are interested in continental recipes will want to compare Leong’s English examples to other traditions. Scholars of the history of the material text will find much of interest in her third, fourth, and sixth chapters, which offer case studies of book use. Leong’s lucid prose and engaging style also make this book an excellent candidate for classroom use.