About this collection

Mary Belin, 1839-1913, married Lammot du Pont, 1831-1884, and had eleven children, many who were prominent in the building up of the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company. Belin was the daughter of Henry H. Belin (1803-1891) and Isabell d'Andelot (1812-1863). Her father was the main bookkeeper for the DuPont Company.

The Mary Belin du Pont recipe book (Accession 2458) is a carbon copy of a typed transcript from Belin's recipe book. The recipe book included dishes typical of middle class Americans in the Northeast in the early and mid-nineteenth century.

Some recipes appear to have been taken from newspaper columns that were originally clipped by Mary Belin's mother, Isabella. In addition to dishes such as calves' foot jelly, flannel cakes, potato pudding, ginger beer, turtle soup, johnny cake, jumbles, flummery, potted shad and blanc mange, there are a variety of home remedies, household hints on washing and cleaning, and how to prepare paints and dyes.

Image: Mary Belin du Pont. Click here to view in the collection.