On the Score of Hospitality: Selected Receipts of a Van Rensselaer Family, Albany, New York, 1785-1835. A Historic Cherry Hill Recipe Collection

Since Philip Van Rensselaer built his Georgian mansion near Albany in 1787, four generations of his descendants have preserved intact a large and important collection of furnishings, art objects, and historical manuscripts which now form the museum Historic Cherry Hill. On the Score of Hospitality has been compiled from the handwritten copybooks belonging to Maria Van Rensselaer, her daughter Arriet, and her granddaughters Elizabeth and Harriet Maria between the years of 1785 and 1835. These receipts illustrate the complex responsibilities of women in a prominent Dutch household in the Hudson River Valley. Their cooking recipes, remedies for the sick, and instructions for farming document the family's domestic history and supply a firsthand, colorful account of life in America at the turn of the 19th century.