Martha Smith’s book exemplifies one of the most prevalent forms of manuscript collection in the early modern period (ca. 1550-1800): the recipe book. Predecessors of this type of manuscript book include medieval medical recipe books known as “receptaria” used in monasteries as well as miscellanies and commonplace books, of which the recipe book is a type. Recorded in a neat and meticulous hand, the recipes are for both medicine and food. Smith organized her notebook in a deliberate fashion, devoting (as others did) the first half to medicinal recipes and the second half to food recipes. The words “A drinke for the cough of the lungs” begin the medicinal recipe section and “To make sugar cakes” begin the food recipe section. In accordance with other recipe books from the same period, a blank page and a half separate the two halves, suggesting Smith filled each half simultaneously as she encountered each type of recipe.
The words “Martha Smith her booke,” with Smith’s name in extra large letters, appear on the first page of the notebook. This indubitable mark of ownership is also a common sight in notebooks of the period. Books of this nature serve as repositories for the self and are a form of life writing. They are sites in which information useful for domestic life encountered and chosen by the notebook creator are carefully gathered and kept, ready to be consulted when needed by her. Scraps of paper with additional medicinal recipes are scribbled on them and tucked at the back of the notebook written in a different hand. A second name, Emily E. Bleecky, inscribed beneath Smith’s on the title page, shows a member of a later generation used Smith’s collection of recipes and incorporated them into her life as well.