The first 44 pages are in one hand, probably that of Robert Godfrey referred to on the first page "The receipts within this booke were written by Robert Godfrey Servant to the right honorable the Ladie Borlase of Bockmore in the parish of Medmenham in the county of Buck in the yeare of our Lord God One Thousand Six Hundred Sixty Five and in the Seaventeenth yeare of King Charles the Second over England. (In July)." Underneath on the same page in a later hand: James Warren 1732. The next section, in a different hand, is headed "These Receipts following are my Mothers." Several other hands continue the collection and credit is given for some of the recipes to Lady Fanshaw, Mrs. Cooke, Lady Curson, Lord Chesterfield, "My grandmother Warren," and many others.

Besides the recipes for meats, fish, puddings and preserves there are some for wines: cowslip, elder, orange, rasberry, and raisin, and a recipe for spruce beer by Major MacDonald of Newfoundland. A printed advertisement with a recipe for making spruce beer from an essence for sale in Quebec, London, and New York is tipped in. Also included are recipes for making dyes of yellow, purple and green. As usual in such collections, there are some household remedies, one of them a mole powder for convulsions, which involves catching the moles alive (in March). "The way to take the moules alive is to thro' them out of the earth as they see them work instead of strikeing them because that kills them which is the usual way & if dead they are good for nothing."

Another interesting entry, headed "Charles-Towne South Carolina Sept. 28th," describes the smallpox epidemic and the use of "tare water" as being superior to inoculation as a preventative. The first and oldest recipe is "to dry pippings," "to dry figs," "to make almond puddings in guts," and "rice puddings in guts." Later on several recipes for "suger" cakes, "to roast a pike," "to dress a shoulder of veal," "to preserve pippins green." Toward the end of the book some recipes are dated from 1799, among them a recipe for portable soup by Lady Napier, stilton cheese by Mrs. Sherbrooke, apricot marmalade, and milk lemonade. Among the very last recipes on page 138 to 139 are recipes from a definitely much later date. Among them is a ham toast and the green pea soup. At the end of the book is a second index on 6 pages. Note: This manuscript has been published as Ladie Borlase's receiptes booke edited by David E. Schoonover with the assistance of Jessica Renaud (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1998).