Sale 2455 - Printed & Manuscript Americana, September 28, 2017

308 c   (MEXICAN COOKERY.) An early Mexican manuscript cookbook. 67, [1] manuscript leaves. 12mo, contemporary mottled calf, minor wear; lacking front free endpaper and leaf 22, pencil doodles on blank leaves; pencil inscription (probably later) by Antonio Fuentes on rear flyleaf. Np, circa 1800? [5,000/7,500] This cookbook, in a tidy and easily legible hand, was likely produced long before the first published Mexican cookbooks appeared in 1831.A table of contents in the rear shows how the book is arranged: meats, cakes, eggs, empanadas, desserts, fritters and tamales, biscuits, sweets, syrups, and nevadas. Distinctively Mexican dishes include “huebos moles” on leaf 25, “tamales de dulce” on leaf 41, “camotes poblanos” (a sweet potato candy from Puebla) on leaf 54, and “turron de Oaxaca” (a nougat) on leaf 57.As several recipes are described as “poblano,” we suspect this book may have been compiled in or near Puebla. It does not appear to have been published, or to rely on published sources.The manuscript is not signed or dated, but a Spanish Almirral watermark can be seen on leaf 2 and elsewhere.