fields of research
Disciplinary
Cultural Studies
Work in progress
Food and Culinary History
1400-2000
Ireland
Cooking
Cookbook
Food cultures
Food studies
Heritage
Identities
Nationalism
Institution / Research unit
Publications
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Dorothy Cashman « French Boobies and Good English Cooks. The Relationship with French Culinary Influence in 18th and 19th century Ireland” » in Reimagining Ireland. Proceedings from the AFIS conference 2012, Vol 55 Reimagining Ireland. Peter Lang 2014
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Dorothy Cashman « “That delicate sweetmeat, the Irish plum’. The culinary world of Maria Edgeworth” » in ‘Tickling the Palate’: Gastronomy in Irish Literature and Culture. Vol 57 Reimagining Ireland Peter Lang 2014
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Dorothy Cashman « ‘Stir It In Well, It Will Give a High French Taste’, The Relationship with French Culinary Influence in the 18th and 19th Centur » in Inaugural Dublin Gastronomy Symposium. 2012
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Dorothy Cashman « Culinary Manuscripts: Taking their place at the table in Georgian Ireland » in Irish Georgian Society 2012
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Dorothy Cashman « “Lady Anne Fitzgerald’s receipts. All remarkably good” Culinary and household manuscripts of Georgian Ireland. » in The Bishop Hervey International Summer School, Coleraine. 2013
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Dorothy Cashman « ‘There’s no Procuring Peach or Plum, the Tarts and Pies are not yet come..’ Commercial and domestic confectionery in Georgian Ir » in American Conference for Irish Studies/Canadian Association for Irish Studies ACIS/CAIS, ‘Latitudes. Irish Studies in an Internat 2014
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Dorothy Cashman « ‘The dough must be neither dauked nor opened on the side as is the custom in Ireland’. » in Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates, Maynooth University ‘Indoors and Outdoors, Public and Private: Women 2015
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Dorothy Cashman « ‘Cooking Potatoes, ca. 1816. The evidence of Irish culinary manuscripts’. » in Moore Institute, NUI Galway, The Year Without Summer (1816): Bicentenary Conference 2016
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Dorothy Cashman « Printed cookbooks in early modern and Georgian Ireland. A ghostly presence. » in Economic and Social History Society of Ireland 2016
Thesis
« An Investigation of Irish Culinary History Through Manuscript Cookbooks, with Particular Reference to the Gentry of County Kilke »
2016 -
Supervised by Dr Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire.
Dublin Institute of Technology
Dublin Institute of Technology
Abstract
This thesis argues that Irish culinary manuscripts have a significant contribution to make to an understanding of Irish culinary history. It does so by identifying one particular manuscript, NLI MS 34,952 (Baker) as being representative of the genre but singular in terms of the archival and literary support available for an in-depth study. Analysis of the manuscript is undertaken using a methodology devised by the culinary historian Wheaton for researchers attending her workshops at Radcliffe College, Harvard. In these workshops Wheaton studies historic cookbooks to ascertain what these complex texts can reveal by breaking them down into five categories, that of the ingredients, the kitchen, the meal, the book and the worldview. This is the first time a manuscript, Irish or otherwise, has been the subject of Wheaton’s structured approach. Irish authored cookbooks have a very slight presence in the historiography of cookbooks prior to the foundation of the Irish State. To date, four have been identified up to the start of the twentieth century. The book written by Ceres and Cole’s assembled work are the only two for the period covered by this research. The culinary manuscripts are therefore the most valuable source for recorded recipes on the island. This research argues for the legitimacy of their inclusion in the historiography of the recipe in Ireland. It does so by discussing their contribution in the context of the relationship between manuscript and printed cookbook, by presenting the case for a broader engagement with pan-European culinary history and by demonstrating that the history of food in Ireland shows that the inhabitants of the island at every stage absorbed and adapted to external influences. The concluding argument questions the validity of an interpretation of the manuscripts as being colonial imports within the context of food history. The Royal Irish Academy have published two thematic volumes addressing what are identified as fundamental themes in Irish life; Domestic Life in Ireland, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 111C, and Food and Drink in Ireland, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 115C, confirming that the study of all aspects of culinary history on the island is now an important contributor to academic research. Assembled here for the first time is a database, Appendix One, of cookbooks published in Ireland before the extension of the copyright act to the country at the start of the nineteenth century. This is complementary to the database of manuscripts and selected source material in
Appendix Seven. This brings together for the first time a listing of manuscripts across institutions in Ireland and beyond these shores. These databases along with the research conducted for analysis of NLI MS 34,952 (Baker) is the first to fully contextualise the manuscripts within Irish culinary history, and in so doing to legitimise their contribution to that history.
This thesis argues that Irish culinary manuscripts have a significant contribution to make to an understanding of Irish culinary history. It does so by identifying one particular manuscript, NLI MS 34,952 (Baker) as being representative of the genre but singular in terms of the archival and literary support available for an in-depth study. Analysis of the manuscript is undertaken using a methodology devised by the culinary historian Wheaton for researchers attending her workshops at Radcliffe College, Harvard. In these workshops Wheaton studies historic cookbooks to ascertain what these complex texts can reveal by breaking them down into five categories, that of the ingredients, the kitchen, the meal, the book and the worldview. This is the first time a manuscript, Irish or otherwise, has been the subject of Wheaton’s structured approach. Irish authored cookbooks have a very slight presence in the historiography of cookbooks prior to the foundation of the Irish State. To date, four have been identified up to the start of the twentieth century. The book written by Ceres and Cole’s assembled work are the only two for the period covered by this research. The culinary manuscripts are therefore the most valuable source for recorded recipes on the island. This research argues for the legitimacy of their inclusion in the historiography of the recipe in Ireland. It does so by discussing their contribution in the context of the relationship between manuscript and printed cookbook, by presenting the case for a broader engagement with pan-European culinary history and by demonstrating that the history of food in Ireland shows that the inhabitants of the island at every stage absorbed and adapted to external influences. The concluding argument questions the validity of an interpretation of the manuscripts as being colonial imports within the context of food history. The Royal Irish Academy have published two thematic volumes addressing what are identified as fundamental themes in Irish life; Domestic Life in Ireland, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 111C, and Food and Drink in Ireland, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 115C, confirming that the study of all aspects of culinary history on the island is now an important contributor to academic research. Assembled here for the first time is a database, Appendix One, of cookbooks published in Ireland before the extension of the copyright act to the country at the start of the nineteenth century. This is complementary to the database of manuscripts and selected source material in
Appendix Seven. This brings together for the first time a listing of manuscripts across institutions in Ireland and beyond these shores. These databases along with the research conducted for analysis of NLI MS 34,952 (Baker) is the first to fully contextualise the manuscripts within Irish culinary history, and in so doing to legitimise their contribution to that history.