This article explores the prominent medical theories in Western Europe, paying attention to how these theoretical frameworks changed perceptions of consuming food. It discusses the idea of moderation of food and drink and how it connected to the practice of Protestantism in the household. Finally, the article explores Scottish domestic papers dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, focusing on recipe books. Through these sources, this article will highlight the historical ties between food and medicine and how it was understood in the upper-class Scottish households.
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CheyneG. An Essay on Health and Long Life. Printed for George Strahan and J. Leake, Bath: London; 1724.
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For more on historical weights and measures see: Connor RD, Simpson ADC. Weights and Measures in Scotland: A European Perspective. Edinburgh: Tuckwell Press Ltd; 2004.
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National Library of Scotland (NLS). Book of Recipes, started by Anna, Lady Elcho and Continued by Her Daughter Jean, Countess of Sutherland. MS 3031. NB. I have silently expanded abbreviations, which I will continue to do throughout this section. Thus, ‘ye’ is written as ‘the’ and ‘wch’ as ‘which’, et cetera. Anna Balfour (d. 1649) married David Wemyss, 2nd Earl of Wemyss in 1625.
17.
Folger Shakespeare Library (FSL). Cookbook [manuscript], ca. 1706. W.a. 111.
18.
There were later instances of the Black Death in Great Britain, but they were not on the scale of previous periods. For more on Scotland and the Black Death see: Jillings K. Scotland’s Black Death: The Foul Death of the English. Stroud: Tempus Publishing Limited; 2003.
Pennsylvania State University (PSU). Receipt book written by Christian Barclay Jaffray. RBM 2495, Box 1.
21.
NLS. Culinary and Medical Recipes MIM. MS 15912.
22.
HatfieldVG.Domestic medicine in eighteenth century Scotland. PhD Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1980.
23.
For more on Scottish trade around the union of the parliaments see: Rössner PR. Scottish Trade in the Wake of Union (1700–1760): The Rise of a Warehouse Economy. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag; 2008.
24.
NLS. Account Book of Jean Wemyss. Dep 313/502.
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