MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Christmas celebration with Emma Darwin's Recipe Book

A cookbook based on notes by Charles Darwin's wife Emma, has been published in Britain, a fascinating testimony of Victorian times. Emma Darwin's Recipe Book features more than 40 dishes from her personal cookery notebook, which is housed in Cambridge University Library.

Turnip cresselly, broiled mushrooms, cheese straws and baked apple pudding all feature in the Victorian notes. Sales of the book, which is being published by the university, will help fund research into, and the publication of, Mr Darwin's letters. The book has been compiled by Dusha Bateson and Weslie Janeway is publicized as a culinary solution for a "Christmas with credit crunch". "Emma was a much underestimated lady. She wasn't Delia Smith (the famous cook), but Emma had to feed Darwin, seven children and twelve servants. The book shows her methodical approach to the compilation of recipes", Bateson was recently quoted in the London press. Adam Perkins, curator of scientific manuscripts at Cambridge University Library, said: "His (Charles Darwin's) theory of evolution by natural selection is one of the most important in the history of science and we are still studying everything he wrote". "But it's an expensive process and requires skilled people, so continued funding of the project is vital." Charles Darwin attended Christ's College at Cambridge University between 1828 and 1831.