During the pandemic our relationship with food, and how we shop and cook, has undergone numerous changes.
An international survey [1] led by Queen’s University, Belfast between May and June 2020, suggested that there has been an increase in home-cooking and preparing food with fresh ingredients in Great Britain, Ireland, and New Zealand. The survey also found that cooking with children has increased.
Family historians often enjoy preparing meals that older relatives ate in the past, as well as passing on food traditions to younger generations. Another way of connecting family history and food is through exploring historic recipes.
Diana Astry was baptised 2 January 1671 at St Mary’s, Henbury, Gloucestershire, the third daughter and fifth child of Sir Samuel Astry (1632–1704) of Henbury, Gloucestershire, a clerk of the privy council to James II, and his wife, Elizabeth Morse (d. 27 December 1708).
Diana is now remembered as a diarist and writer of recipe books. She kept a social diary-notebook (featuring menus) from September 1701 until September 1706, and a recipe book from about 1701 until 1708.
The recipe book in the Society’s Library includes over 350 numbered recipes, which provide an important insight into the history of English cooking. Collected by Diana Astry, they feature instructions for culinary, medicinal, wines, cordials, preserves and pickles, providing a valuable record of culinary practices, such as in the presentations of timings.
The recipe diary entries ended on 3 September 1708, three months before her marriage in London to Richard Orlebar (1671–1733), who was appointed high sheriff for Bedfordshire in 1720. Diana later described him in a letter to her sister as ‘a very kind Husban …’ (Orlebar, 195). In 1710, the couple’s home, Hinwick House, was built – modelled on the original Buckingham Palace. The Grade I listed Queen Anne country house still exists, currently sitting in 38 acres of parkland. Diana and Richard Orlebar had no surviving children.
Diana Orlebar died on 4 December 1716 at Hinwick House and was buried at St Mary the Virgin, Podington, Bedfordshire. In 1950, her 224-page manuscript book of recipes was entrusted to the Bedfordshire County Record Office. Although her twelve-page notebook remained with other Orlebar papers at Hinwick House,this was published with the diary in 1957. The recipes are edited and introduced by Mrs Bette Stitt. The wills were edited by Alan Cirket (1921-2013), a member of staff in the Bedfordshire County Record Office from 1936 to 1983 (except for war service) and honorary curator of the Bunyan Museum, Bedford.
Further Reading:
- Diana Astry’s recipe book, c.1700, ed. B. Stitt, Bedfordshire Historical RS, 37 (1957).
- Frederica St John Orlebar, The Orlebar chronicles in Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, 1553–1733 (Mitchell Hughes & Clarke, 1930); Society of Genealogists’ Library, Shelf mark FJ/ORL, Acc. No. 15492.
- Harriet Blodgett, Astry [married name Orlebar], Diana (bap. 1671, d. 1716), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/48925 (Published online: 26 May 2005; This version: 25 May 2006); accessed 31 July 2021.
- Hinwick House http://https://www.hinwickhouse.org/
[1] The researchers questioned 2,360 adults across the island of Ireland, Great Britain, the US, and New Zealand. The results of the research were published in the journal, Nutrients.
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