MSS 0097, Item 0188 - Manuscript recipe book in English and Swedish

Hannah Borg, a Swedish immigrant to the United States, kept this English and Swedish recipe book from the 1920s to the 1940s.

Borg frequently switched between writing recipes in Swedish and English. Her recipes reflect the influence of both Nordic and American foodways. The volume begins with a list in Swedish of daily meals planned or prepared over the course of several weeks. Each daily menu consisted of frukost (breakfast), middag (dinner or lunch), and kväll (supper). Several meal plans also included efterrätt (dessert). Common foods included kaffe (coffee), ågg (eggs), smörgås (sandwiches), mjölk (milk), and sill (herring).

Following the daily menus, Borg recorded a number of recipes in English. Between the first pages of English recipes, she pasted in a clipped recipe from Carnation for corn pone and corn-bread sticks. Borg included recipes for various desserts, including chocolate cream roll and coconut macaroons, as well as savory dishes like gnocchi and American Tagliarini. She attributed several recipes to women named Bertha, Rika, and Clara. Borg included several brand-name ingredients in her English-language recipes, such as Knox gelatin, Crisco, and Del Monte tomato sauce.

After a recipe in English for oatmeal cookies, Borg recorded more traditional Nordic recipes in Swedish, including gravlax (cured salmon), fiskomelett (fish omelet), and finsk fårstuvning (Finnish lamb stew). She also provided lengthy explanations in Swedish of how to make and serve ice cream. The last few pages of the volume contain a mixture of recipes in English and Swedish.

This volume is bound with a flexible black cloth cover and contains 62 pages of unlined, wove paper. The recipes are handwritten in pencil.