Penn Family Recipes comes to the Phoodie Library by way of a dollar book bin, but is surely worth its weight in gold. Upon cracking open the 40-year-old book, the reader is greeted by that musty smell, as well as a brief explanation of its contents: William Penn‘s first wife, Guli(elma), kept a handwritten book of family recipes which had been handed down from her mother and grandmother. The book contains 144 recipes written by Gulielma Penn‘s own hand, and believe us when we tell you that Guli was a hilarious speller. The publisher made a point to reproduce her “quaint spelling and word usage” exactly, resulting in some truly adorable misspellings worthy of a Phoodie intern. Just observe her recipe titled “Too Make Whigs”:

“Take 1/2 a peck of flouer by mesure,
then take a pound of butter
and breke it into it with your hands,
the quantity of an oz: of nutmegs,
mace and sinomen together in fine pouder,
3/4 of a pound of Caraway comfets,
a pint and a 1/2 of yeist,
the same of milke, it must bee bloode warme,
be suer you to not over bake them.”

According to the bottom of the page, a “wig cake” is a wedge-shaped bun or cake made of fine flour. But there’s something mildly disturbing about milke that bee bloode warme. This book covers everything from baking to custards to beverages and (dear God) preparation of meat. According the account of the life of Gulielma Maria Springett Penn by Evelyn Abraham Benson included in the back of the book, Guli was a looker, too:

“[...] her hand was sought in marriage by suitors of high degree and title. The beauty of her person and character were, of course, of prime significance, but the gentlemen were not unaware that she was an heiress in her own right, worth ten thousand pounds clear.”

Without sounding too chauvinist, way to go, William! While the book is available at Amazon, it may not be worth the thirteen dollars that it’s going for; but for a buck, it’s totally worth the pickup.