The entrepreneurial Kidder probably dictated this book with his students in mind; surely they would already know how to prepare meats from veal to venison for baking and how hot to make the fire. The notebook contains many recipes for meat "pyes" and pasties with meat, plus recipes for puddings and cakes and meat, poultry, and fish main dishes: First Dishes, Bottome Dishes, Side Dishes, For Ye Midle, Second Course, and Plates. Many recipes have surprising starting points, such as Pidgeon Peares: . Bone your pidgeons all but one leg & put that thro' ye side out at ye vent cut off ye toes & fill them with forcd meat made of ye hart & liver & cover them with a tender forcd meat being washd over with ye batter of egges & shape them like peares then wash them over & roul them in scalded chopt spinnage... and then a Regalia of Cowcumbers, a Swan Pye, and a Calves head hasht. These recipes predate modern squeamishness about cooking with organ meats and consuming animal fat and display a sense of familiarity with and awareness of flesh that are no longer second nature to cooks. From the perspective of the twentieth century the language seems oddly direct, "take ye flesh of a foul beef suet & marrow ye same quantity, " and personalized, as in "toss up a handfull of chopt capers." Everyone wishing to delve deeper into culinary history will find these recipes, the latest addition to the Iowa Szathmary Culinary Arts Series, fascinating as artifacts of culture and society.