Join us for an evening exploring (and tasting!) fascinating research into early modern recipe books considering both culinary contributions and properties of the medicinal plant ingredients.

The evening will begin with an introduction to the ‘Healing words’ exhibition with curator and archive manager Pamela Forde followed by two lectures. There will be an exciting interlude for historic chocolate tasting including the chance to take home your own hot chocolate made to a recipe from one of the RCP books!

Mountebanks, farm workers, and wet-nurses: culinary contribution and collaboration in early modern British recipe books

With Dr Amanda Herbert, Associate Professor of Early Modern Americas in the History Department at Durham University, historian of the body, author and editor for the Recipes Project.

Handwritten recipe books, just like the ones at the Royal College of Physicians, show us how many people, and how many different kinds of people, made food and medicine for the premodern British home. In Britain and its colonies, food-workers included people who also did work in childcare, in agriculture, in housekeeping, and who sold food and medicine for profit. Some of these people worked for pay, and others were enslaved permanently to kitchens and homes. Although we might not normally think of these women and men as professional chefs, many of them contributed to, collaborated on, and did the labour of making food for British families in the premodern world. This talk will reveal just some of the lives and experiences of these food workers, many of whom who aren't typically captured in the historic record.

Chocolate tasting

It is hard to imagine a world without chocolate, but cacao comes from the Americas, and Europeans didn't know it existed until 1492. During the drinks break, Dr Herbert will lead a delicious tasting session with early chocolate ingredients and discuss their history. You'll even get to make your own special blend of early modern drinking chocolate to take home.

Healing plants: historic medicines in the RCP Garden

With Dr. Henry Oakeley, RCP fellow, author and expert on medicinal plants.

Join Dr Henry Oakeley, one of the RCP Garden fellows, for an exploration of the plant ingredients used in our collection of handwritten recipe books and grown in our very own Medicinal Garden. Plants were the main components of many of these recipes, which included not only medicines but, food, cosmetics, cleaning products and more. From why rosemary was used in plague cures to why strawberries were once thought to treat jaundice, discover the theories and stories behind the plant ingredients used for centuries.