english cookery book

7/31/2019 English Cookery Book

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THE ENGLISH COOKERY BOOK

HISTORICAL ESSAYS


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Frontispiece. The rontispiece to The Housekeepers Instructor or Uniersal Famil Cookby W.A.

Henderson (sixth edition, ca. 1800).


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THE

ENGLISH COOKERY BOOK

HISTORICAL ESSAYS

leedssymposiumonfoodhistory

foodandsociety series

edited beileen white

PROSPECT BOOKS2004


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First published in 2004 b Prospect Books, Allaleigh House, Blackawton,

Totnes, Deon TQ97DL.

Based on papers from the Sixteenth Leeds Smposium on Food Histor,

March 2001, Books for Cooks, Housekeepers and Social Historians, with

an additional paper. This is the twelfth olume in the series Food and

Societ.

2004 as a collection, Prospect Books (but 2004 in indiidual articles

rests with the indiidual authors).

The authors assert their right to be identified as the authors of their seeral

pieces in accordance with the Copright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

No part of this publication ma be reproduced, stored in a retrieal ss-

tem, or transmitted in an form or b an means, electronic, mechanical,

photocoping, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copright

holder.

britishlibrarycataloguinginpublicationdata:

A catalogue entr for this book is aailable from the British Librar.

ISBN 1903018366

Tpeset b Tom Jaine.

Printed and bound b the Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wiltshire.


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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements 6

Foreword 7

List of Illustrations 8Notes on Contributors 11

Preface 13

Eileen White

Chapter 1

An Introduction to the Cooker Book Collection in the Brotherton

Librar, Uniersit of Leeds

C. Anne Wilson 19Chapter 2

The Language of Medieal Cooker

Peter Meredith 28

Chapter 3

A Close Look at the Composition of Sir Hugh Plats Delightes or La-dies

Malcolm Thick 55

Chapter 4

Domestic English Cooker and Cooker Books, 15751675

Eileen White 72

Chapter 5

From Murrell to Jarrin: Illustrations in British Cooker Books, 1621

1820

Ivan Day 98

Chapter 6 William Alexis Jarrin and The Italian Conectioner Laura Mason 151

Chapter 7

Beond Beeton: Some Nineteenth-Centur Cooker and Household

Books in the Brotherton Special Collections

Valerie Mars 175

Index 199

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ACKNOwLEdGEmENTS

To the staff, past and present, of Special Collections in the Brotherton

Librar, Uniersit of Leeds, are due thanks for their friendl sericeoer man ears of research b the contributors to this olume.

Unless otherwise stated in the captions, all illustrations are taken from

books in the Brotherton collection, with the kind permission of Mr C.

Sheppard, the Special Collections Librarian.

The page from Sloane MS 2189 (f.64a) is reproduced b permission of

the British Librar. Reproduction of the two manuscript plans for dinner

at Hatfield House in Chapter 5 is b courtes of the Marquess of Salisbur.

Thanks also to Tom Jaine for bringing eerthing together.

C. Anne Wilson, a former member of the Brotherton Librar staff, is a

founder member of the Leeds Smposium on Food Histor. Her bookFoodand Drink in Britain (1973) has sered as an important reference work in thegrowing stud of food histor and her fellow-contributors to this book are

pleased to acknowledge her continuing interest and support.

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FOREwORd

Food and Societ Series

Publication of papers from the Leeds Smposium on Food Histor

The first six olumes were published b Edinburgh Uniersit Press and are

now out of print; the following three b Sutton Publishing (two of them in

association with The National Trust); the olumes from no. 10 hae been

published b Prospect Books.

The titles, with the series numbers, are:

1. Banquetting Stue: the Fare and Social Background o the Tudor and StuartBanquet, ed. C.A. Wilson (1986 Smposium), 1991.2. The Appetite and the Eye: Visual Aspects o Food and its Presentation withintheir Historic Context, ed. C.A. Wilson (1987 Smposium), 1991.3. Traditional Food East and West o the Pennines, ed. C.A. Wilson (1988Smposium), 1991.

4. Waste Not, Want Not: Food Preservation in Britain rom Early Times to thePresent Day, ed. C.A. Wilson (1989 Smposium), 1991.

5. Liquid Nourishment: Potable Foods and Stimulating Drinks, ed. C.A. Wil-son (1990 Smposium), 1993.

6. Food or the Community: Special Diets or Special Groups, ed. C.A. Wilson(1991 Smposium), 1993.

7. Luncheon, Nuncheon and Other Meals, ed. C.A. Wilson (1992 Smpo-sium), 1994. Now republished in paperback as Eating with the Victorians(Sutton, 2004).

8. The Country House Kitchen, 16501900: Skills and Equipment or Food

Provisioning, ed. P.A. Sambrook and P. Brears (double olume for 1993 and1994 Smposia), 1996.9. The Country House Kitchen Garden, 16001950: How Produce was Grownand How it was Used, ed. C.A. Wilson (1995 Smposium), 1998.10. Feeding a City: York, ed. E. White (double olume for 1997 and 1998Smposia), 2000.

11. Food and the Rites o Passage, ed. L. Mason (1999 Smposium), 2002.

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LISTOF ILLuSTRATIONS

Frontispiece. The rontispiece to The Housekeepers Instructor or Uniersal Famil Cookby W.A.Henderson (sixth edition, ca. ). ..........................................................................................

Figure. Title-page rom The Accomplished Ladies Rich Closet of Rarities, . .......................Figure. Title-page oA Booke of Cookr(). .......................................................................Figure. Bees in the hive, rom The Feminin Monarchi, or The Histori of Bees (). ...........Figure. Root vegetables rom the kitchen garden, illustrated in John ParkinsonsParadisus terrestris o

. ...................................................................................................................................Figure. Making pasta, rom Opera di M. Bartolomeo Scappi (Venice, ). ............................Figure. A feld kitchen, rom ScappisOpera (Venice, ). ........................................................Figure. This illustration rom ScappisOpera (Venice, ) also includes examples o smaller kitchen

utensils. ..................................................................................................................................Figure. Pages rom the edition oDelightes for Ladies, showing the decorative borders. .........

Figure. A page rom British Library Sloane MS (.a), showing the respective hands o T.T.and Hugh Plat.(Reproduction courtesy o the British Library.) ...................................................

Figure. One o Hugh Plats ingenious suggestions in The Jewell House of Art and Nature. ..........Figure. Frontispiece and title-page to Hannah WolleysThe Queen-like Closet. ..........................Figure. Comparison o recipes or verjuice rom Gervase Markham, The English House-wife (

edition), and Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook( edition). ..........................................Figure. Comparison o recipes or a Farsed Pudding rom Murrels Two Bookes of Cookerie and

Caring ( edition), and Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook( edition). ..................Figure. The recipe or a Spanish olio rom The Compleat Cook(). ....................................Figures &. Two portraits. Queen Henrietta Maria, the rontispiece to The Queens Closet

Opened (). Elizabeth Cromwell, as shown in the rontispiece to The Court & Kitchin of

Elizabeth, Commonl called Joan Cromwel, The Wife of the late Usurper (

). ...............

Figure. Frontispiece to The Countr Housewife and Lads Director, by R. Bradley (). ......Figure. A set o manica (jelly bags) or straining the spices out o hippocras. Girolamo Ruscelli, The

Secrets of Maister Alexis of Piedmont (London: ). .........................................................Figure. Illustration o a kitchen scene rom theKoch und Kellermeistere(Frankurt: ). ...Figure. Frontispiece o Hannah WolleysThe Ladies Delight (London: ). .........................Figure. A woodcut illustration romA Book of Fruits and Flowers (London: ). ................Figure. Engraved rontispiece rom Nathan BaileysDictionarium Domesticum, published by

Charles Hitch (London: ). ............................................................................................Figure. Table plan to show how sweetmeats and ruit were to be arranged or the ultimo servitio o

an Italian east. From Matthias GieghersLi tre trattati (Padua: ). .................................Figure. Two table-layout diagrams rom John MurrelsA Delightful Dail Exercise for Ladies and

Gentlewomen (London: ). ..........................................................................................Figure. A rather debased woodcut copy o Gieghers banquet table (fgure), printed in Giles Roses

A Perfect School of Instructions for the Officers of the Mouth (London: ). .................Figure. Top, a detail o the King and Queens table rom an engraved plate by S. Moore in Francis

SandordsThe Histor of the Coronation of James II (London: ). Bottom, Sandords tableplan o the same table. .........................................................................................................

Figure. (Top) A plan or a table rom GieghersLi tre trattati (Padua: ). (Below let) A wood-cut o an identical table plan rom Rose (London: ). (Below right) A similar, though morecomplex table-layout rom Patrick LambsRoal Cooker(London: ). ............................

Figure. Two table plans rom Lamb (). ...........................................................................Figure. Two plates rom Vincent La ChapellesThe Modern Cook(London ). ................

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Figure. This plan shows how theterrines andpots douille were to be arranged on the table or thefrst course. It appeared in the frst French edition o La Chapelles book published in the Hague in. ..................................................................................................................................

Figure. A Royal Table o sixty covers with threesurtouts de table. ............................................Figure. A large olding engraved plate rom Charles CartersThe Compleat Cit and Countr

Cook(London ). .........................................................................................................Figure. A manuscript table plan or the frst course o a dinner served to James Cecil, th Earl o

Salisbury on Thursday Januaryth? at Hatfeld House. (Hatfeld General/ recto).Photograph courtesy o the Marquess o Salisbury. ...................................................................

Figure. The second course o the same Hatfeld dinner. (Hatfeld General/ verso). Photographcourtesy o the Marquess o Salisbury. .....................................................................................

Figure. A fgure showing an Italian cook carving a jointin alto, while his assistant uses a duck pressto extract gravy. From Bartolomeo ScappisOpera (Venice: ). ...........................................

Figure. Dissection plans or carving a roast pig in the Italian manner. The etching at the top o thepage is rom Giegher (). The woodcut below is rom Rose (). ...................................

Figure. One o two plates rom Giegher which show how to carve citrons in the orm o animals.

Below are two o Roses much more primitive woodcuts, clearly showing the influence o Gieghersillustrations. ........................................................................................................................Figure. Designs or carving oranges rom Giegher. (Bottom let) Three designs or carved apples rom

Rose. (Bottom right) A detail o Gieghers illustration showing the method to carve pears. .........Figure. A dissection diagram showing how a roasted hare was to be carved in the native English style.

Woodcut rom John TruslersThe Honours of the Table (London: ). ..............................Figure. Engraved carving plate rom Collingwood and Woollams, The Uniersal Cook(London

). ................................................................................................................................Figure. Designs or bride pies (let) and mince pies (right), rom Robert Mays The Accomplisht

Cook(London ). .........................................................................................................Figure. School o Osias Beert. A detail rom a still lie showing a rabbit pie and other oods on a

table. ..................................................................................................................................

Figure. Designs or rabbit and hare pies. .................................................................................Figure. Custard designs rom May (). .............................................................................Figure. Designs or pies in the orm o stag (top right) and an alpine chamois (bottom right). Conrad

Hagger, Neues Saltzburgisches Koch-Buch (Augsburg: ). .............................................Figure. Two woodcut pages o shaped pie designs rom T.P., The Accomplisht Ladies Delight (Lon-

don: ). .........................................................................................................................Figure. Engraved pie designs rom Henry Howard, Englands Newest Wa(London: ). .....Figure. Woodcut pie designs rom T. Hall, The Queens Roal Cooker(London: ). .........Figure. Three designs or pies rom Hagger (). .................................................................Figure. Designs or a lamb pasty and a venison pasty. From Edward KiddersReceipts of Pastr and

Cooker(London: ca. ). ..............................................................................................

Figure. Designs or set custards and egg pies. Kidder (ca.). .................................................Figure. A lateth-century trade card in the orm o a dinner invitation to a cookery school. ...Figure. A diagram to show how a hare was trussed. From The Whole Dut of a Woman (London:

). ................................................................................................................................Figure. A plate o trussing diagrams rom Mrs Frazer, The Practice of Cooker, Pastr, Pickling,

Presering, &c. (Edinburgh: ). ....................................................................................Figure. Trussing designs rom Bradley (). .........................................................................Figure. A printed broadside showing the cuts o meat and their prices in the London markets on

Decemberth . Printed by W. Simpkins o Clements Inn, London. .................................Figure. A wood engraving o a pice monte made by the Yorkshire conectioner Joseph Bell or the

Prince o Wales. From BellsA Treatise of Confectioner(Newcastle: ). ..........................

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the english cookerybook

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Figure. Engraved table plan or a dessert setting with a plateau consisting o three rames. FromFrederick NuttThe Complete Confectioner (London: ). ..............................................

Figure. A sugar paste ountain rom Bell (). .....................................................................Figure. A detail rom a olding plate o conectionery equipment rom JarrinsItalian Confectioner

(London ). ..................................................................................................................

Figure. A recently discovered mould signed by Jarrin. Boxwoodca.s. (Private Collection). ...Figure. The our ages o William Jarrin: the portraits rom successive editions o his work, dated

(top let); (top right); (bottom let); (bottom right). .............................Figure. One o two olding plates (drawn by Jarrin himsel ) showing conectionery equipment, rom

the and subsequent editions oThe Italian Confectioner. ..............................................Figure. Drawing o Jarrins Patent Water Cooler, . ............................................................Figure. Recreations o Jarrins ices. Above: a composition o several pieces; below let and right: the

pineapple and the melon in detail. (Photographs, Laura Mason.) .............................................Figure. A selection o decorative desserts rom Mrs BeetonsBook of Household Management

(), p. . ....................................................................................................................Figure. Illustrations rom Chapter IX, Boiling, Roasting, etc., Modern Cooker for Priate Fami-

lies, by Eliza Acton, frst published in

. ..........................................................................

Figure. Two ront plates rom Mrs Rundell,A New Sstem of Domestic Cooker...................Figure. Chartreuse o Partridges rom The Housekeepers and Butlers Assistant. .....................Figure. Alexis Soyers Hundred Guinea Dish. ..........................................................................Figure. Soyers ront plate orThe Modern Housewife. ...........................................................


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NOTESON CONTRIBuTORS

IvAN DAy is a food historian with a special interest in re-creating the food

of the past in period settings. His work has been exhibited at FairfaxHouse, york; the Bowes Museum; the Rothschild Collection, Wad-

deson Manor; the Museum of London; and the Paul Gett Research

Institute. He is editor ofEat, Drink and Be Merry: the British at table16002000.

vALERIE MARS exploration of food in nineteenth-centur social contexts

is multi-disciplinar and deried from both librar research and working

with original techniques and technologies. Her most recent paper, withGerald Mars, Fat in the victorian Kitchen: a medium for cooking, con-

trol, deiance and crime, won an additional Sophie Coe prize in 2002.

LAURA MASON is a regular contributor to the Leeds Food Smposium.

Her special interest in confectioner led to the inestigation into William

Jarrin presented here. Sugar Plums and Sherbet, published b ProspectBooks, was the result of her confectioner research.

PETER MEREDITH is Emeritus Professor of Medieal Drama at the Uni-

ersit of Leeds with the editing and performance of medieal plas as

his major research actiit. Howeer, one of his main teaching interests

throughout his career has been the histor of the English language, espe-

ciall semantic change and word borrowing, and one of his more recent

publications was the section on English in the Encyclopedia o the Lan-guages o Europe(Blackwell, 1998).

MALCOLM THICK is a Fellow of the Roal Historical Societ. He has

written extensiel on commercial gardening and egetables in diet be-

fore 1801, including a book on earl market gardening around London

(Prospect, 1998) and a chapter on the suppl of seeds, plants and trees in

the Leeds Smposium olume The Country House Kitchen Garden (Sut-ton, 1998). An introduction to a facsimile edition of William LawsonsANew Orchard and Garden is published b Prospect (2003).

EILEEN WHITE began researching in the cooker collection at the Brother-

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ton Librar after becoming interested in recreating old recipes for period

suppers at Bolling Hall Museum in Bradford. She has contributed seeral

papers to the Food and Societ series, and compiled the Soup olumefor the Prospect series on the English kitchen.

C. ANNE WILSON is the oerall editor for the Food and Societ series.

She has recentl been working on a stud of the histor of wine distill-

ing and spirits.

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13

PREFACE

Eileen White

The sixteenth Leeds Smposium on Food Histor celebrated thecollection of cooker books in the Brotherton Librar, Uniersit of

Leeds, which had been the inspiration behind the setting-up of the

Smposium in 1986. This collection is the focus of what has been described

as the Leeds School of food histor, and has stimulated a range of publica-

tions and actiities. The Smposium ranged from the medieal period to

the nineteenth centur, from the Forme o Curyto Mrs Beeton.Cooker books are practical, but can be the starting-point of studies re-

lating to topics far more dierse than merel food preparation. It ma seemstrange, initiall, that cooker books, old and new, can form an important

collection within a uniersit librar. Recipes are not generall perceied as

a source of academic stud: can the hae the same intellectual, theological,

historical or literar alues of material in other collections? But eerone

must eat, and the procurement, preparation and presentation of food, as it

was done oer the centuries and continues toda, must be of interest to all

and is part of the social and economic life of an societ. Cooker books can

therefore proide source material for a range of disciplines.The Brotherton collection opens up a ista of life and attitudes coering

man centuries. Recipes are not literature, but the can be used for literar

and linguistic stud. Their language is often blunt and straightforward, but

contains the rhthm and directness of eerda speech rather than the self-

conscious language of literar composition. The are not obious historical

sources, but reflect the expansion of international trade, reeal the essentials

of eerda life, and embod attitudes and personalities. The papers presen-

ted here show how recipes can be the starting point for different kinds ofinestigation, not onl into food or cooking practices. Like an text, the

can be examined for sources, deriations and dissemination, and can inspire

a search for the background of their authors. The can be used b people

other than cooks.

Peter Meredith brings his expertise in philolog and knowledge of me-

dieal literature and drama to a preliminar stud of the recipes in the late

fourteenth-centur collection, The Forme o Cury. These recipes can standa scrutin otherwise gien to the writings of Chaucer and his fellows, and


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14

Figure1. Title-page rom The Accomplished Ladies Rich Closet of Rarities, seventh edition, 1715.


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introduction

15

reeal something about linguistic forms as well as food preparation. Words

such as bra or seeth, that fell out of use in more literar forms or pub-

lished books, suried in recipe manuscripts to indicate their continuing

use in local dialects.

Writing down recipes suggests a literac among cooks, but this cannot be

assumed in the medieal period or een later. Professional cooks underwent

a long apprenticeship, and domestic cooks would hae learned from their

mothers or other household members. The did not need instructions in the

basic methods. The Forme o Curyand later fifteenth-centur collections didnot gie instructions for roasting an ox, or een for making a boars head,

which featured regularl on bills of fare for great feasts. What was proided,

howeer, were suggestions for spiced, ground meat that would be used for

stuffing the boars head, and for other specialities that would enlien a celeb-rator feast, and were not the eerda fare of the household. The medieal

manuscripts ma hae been in the keeping of the literate clerk of the kitchen

in a large household, who could adise the cook when necessar. A recipe

collection does not necessaril reflect an eerda diet, but often records the

dishes and ingredients proided for special occasions. Once printed books

were established, such collections could be made more easil aailable for

general use, cooks and compilers had a commercial market for their recipes,

and new formats eoled.The papers b Eileen White and valerie Mars concentrate on two peri-

ods, the seenteenth and the nineteenth centuries, and reeal different aims

and attitudes existing at the same time, male and female, professional and

domestic, grandiose and practical. Cooker books reflected the conflict of

the Ciil War in England as much as other documents of the time, the

record how trade made ingredients such as spices more readil aailable, and

the take in new foods and dishes acquired as the British Empire expanded.

Detailed examination of the books can reeal trends and deelopments insociet as well as in food.

The recipes also remind us that until the era of industrialization and mass-

production, proiding food was long and laborious work. Food had to be

presered in the months of plent, and bills of fare reflected seasonal aaila-

bilit. The modern town-dweller can easil become diorced from countr

actiities, and ma not een know what a cow is for. The seenteenth-centur

recipe, b contrast, would send the cook to milk the cow in order to make

a sllabub. People are now more read to eat out or heat up read-prepared


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16

food than spend hours in the kitchen making broths or conseres, but shops

stock more laishl produced cooker books than eer before.

Sometimes it is possible to go beond the printed book and stud its ori-

gin, as Malcolm Thick has done with the manuscript sources of Hugh Plats

Delightes or Ladies. Anone studing recipes er soon finds the same onesappearing in similar ersions in seeral books, and it is tempting to chronicle

this borrowing (plagiarism) b authors. But Hugh Plats manuscript notes

help to elucidate the use of sources, and although he ma hae acquired his

ideas through man friends and acquaintances, like an good compiler he

brings his own enthusiasms to the subject.

At other times, the book can be the starting point for inestigations into

the life or background of the author. Laura Mason describes the thrill of the

chase in following up the life of the confectioner William Jarrin: bankruptcpapers are not an obious place to find out about sugar confectioner, but

the presered a fascinating insight into the business. She first presented

her findings as part of the fifteenth Leeds Food Smposium in 2000, which

took another look at the subject of the first Smposium, Banquetting Stue.It was not intended to publish the papers of this retrospectie meeting, but

the stor of Jarrins life, and the information in the seeral editions ofTheItalian Conectioner, hae a place in the theme of the English cooker book,

as well as representing the fifteenth Smposium.Another element of cooker books is their illustrations, which range from

crude woodcuts to the coloured plates in later editions of Mrs Beeton.

Modern cooker books, especiall those related to teleision programmes,

present themseles through the qualit of their colour photographs as much

as their texts, but the earlier books can offer useful if less colourful portraals

of the cook, the kitchen and the enironment. The etchings in Bartolomeo

Scappis 1570Opera (of which the Brotherton Librar has two editions, one

with etchings and another with woodcuts) offer a glimpse of the workingof a large Renaissance kitchen with its equipment conenientl labelled to

proide a lesson in the Italian language. On a more modest scale, Eliza Acton

gae illustrations of domestic equipment for an earl victorian kitchen in

Modern Cookery or Private Familiesfirst published in 1845. Ian Da looks atEnglish illustrations in the wider context of Continental examples, proiding

man insights into the creations of cooks oer the centuries.

The existence of the Leeds Smposium on Food Histor is due to the

large and aried collection of cooker books in the Brotherton Librar. These


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introduction

17

books are a rich resource, not onl for cooks, and desere to be celebrated.

There is no better person to introduce them than Anne Wilson, who gies a

personal iew of their range, and explains how the came to be there. B her

work in the Brotherton Librar, she was inspired to write Food and Drink inBritain, which has become an essential reference book on the subject. It ishoped that the collection will continue to inspire researchers in the future.


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18

Four cookery book authors and their portraits. From the top let, clockwise: Robert May, 1661; Sir

Kenelm Digby, 1674; Edward Kidder, ca.1740; Elizabeth Raald, 1784.


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CHAPTER ONE

AN INTROduCTIONTOTHE COOKERYBOOK

COLLECTIONSINTHE BROTHERTON LIBRARY, uNI-vERSITYOF LEEdS

C. Anne Wilson

The focus for the sixteenth meeting of the Leeds Smposium on Food

Histor on 24 March 2001 was cooker books and manuscripts and

their authors. And because the Smposium itself has alwas hadstrong links with the collections of earl cooker books in the Brotherton

Librar we took the opportunit to remind the smposiasts that researchers

are welcome to come and consult indiidual books in the Special Collections

Reading Room at the Librar.

One theme that recurred through the da was the question of how far

the writers of cooker books were themseles the originators of the recipes,

and how far the had taken them from existing texts, whether printed or

manuscript. Medieal cooker manuscripts often incorporated groups ofrecipes to be found also in other manuscripts, and some of these can be

proed to hae descended from still earlier lost manuscripts. The tradition

of coping and recoping recipes was thus well established in the Middle

Ages, when English manuscript recipe collections were still produced anon-

mousl (apart from The Forme o Cury, said to hae been compiled b themastercooks of King Richard II).

The tradition did not die out immediatel once cooker books began to be

printed. John Partridge borrowed from a friend a cop of a household bookwritten for the priate use of a gentlewoman in the countr, and decided it

was his dut to publish it in 1585 under the title, The Widowes Treasure. QueenHenrietta Maria, wife of King Charles I, collected recipes presented to her

b the most experienced persons of our time, and when she was in exile

in France her late serant W.M. obtained copies of her receipt-books, and

transcribed and published them as The Queens Closet Openedin 1655.But other cooker book authors were alread reproducing indiidual reci-

pes gleaned from the manuscripts or printed books of earlier compilers; and

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the brotherton library

20

the practice went on through the centuries. The man cooker books in the

Brotherton Librars collections allow food historians not merel to put their

contents into the context of the food production and menus of their da,

but also to trace some of the recipes to sources in a preious generation.

The Brotherton Librar holds three named collections of historic cooker

books, and contemporar books hae been added up to the present da.

There are, for instance, two sheles of cooker books and periodicals in

Chinese, collected during the 1980s and 1990s. Books in English are chosen

to illustrate and record particular trends in menus or cooker practices, such

as nouelle cuisine, deep-freezing and microwaing.

The Librars inolement with cooker books began in 1939 when

Blanche Leigh presented her collection of oer 1,500 items. She was a lad

of some importance in Leeds; and she became Lad Maoress when herhusband Perc was Lord Maor in 19356. She herself edited three cooker

and household books, in 1905, 1918 and 1929, and through that period and

beond she collected cooker books and food-related books and records. The

oldest item in her collection is a Bablonian cla tablet of about 2,500bc

inscribed with a list of foods in cuneiform; and the oldest European book is

Platinas De honesta voluptatein an edition of1487 printed in venice. Thereis a good selection of French cooker books, and a smaller number in Ital-

ian, German, Latin and Greek. But the main section contains the Englishcooker books which date from 1590 to the time when she presented the

books to the Librar. The were catalogued after the Second World War,

and thus made accessible for readers.

In 1954 the Times Bookshop in London held an exhibition entitled Cook-

er Books 15001954, and some books from the Blanche Leigh collection

were on displa there. Mr John F. Preston, a priate collector who was ex-

hibiting books of his own, became interested in the collection at Leeds and

corresponded with Dr Page, then Librarian, with a iew to bequeathing hisbooks to the Librar when he died. In the eent, he and his wife moed into

a smaller house in 1962, and he presented his collection to the Librar at

that time. I was a new member of the Librar staff then, and inoled in the

cataloguing of the weekl through-put of academic and student books. But

during the winter and spring of1964 I was gien the task of cataloguing the

Preston gift. We were not supposed to spend an time reading the books we

catalogued; but when the books were interesting ones, we could neer resist

reading a few paragraphs here and there. And m brief encounters with John


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21

Prestons books inspired me with a lasting interest in food histor.

The collection comprises oer 600 English cooker books dating from

1584 to 1861 (the date of the first edition of Mrs Beetons Book o HouseholdManagement), plus one or two later books. Eentuall I met John Preston,and he twice came to Leeds and reisited his books, housed alongside the

Librars other Special Collections. He was delighted to know that the were

being used b researchers into food histor and social histor.

John Preston died at the age of90 in the autumn of1992. Had he stuck

to his original plan, the books would not hae reached the Librar until

perhaps earl in 1993, when the would hae been catalogued on computer

b a member of the cataloguing team of that time. Had I not had the prii-lege of cataloguing them in 1964, I might neer hae become inoled with

food histor, or hae written Food and Drink in Britain which containsmuch material drawn from the earl cooker books during man subsequent

hours of spare-time research. It was published in 1973.

Among other readers who consulted the books were Peter Brears, Lnette

Hunter (series editor for the Prospect Books bibliographies of cooker and

household books) and Jennifer Stead, all of whom I met in the context of

Figure2. Title-page oA Booke of Cookr(1584).


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discussions on food histor and the books themseles. Had this not hap-

pened, we would neer hae got together to hold the da-school on the

theme of Banquetting Stuffe at the Department of Adult Education in

1986. That meeting became the first Leeds Smposium on Food Histor,

launched for us b the late Alan Daidson who had instituted the Oxford

Smposium on Food a few ears earlier. The annual meetings of the Leeds

Smposium hae been held in March or April eer since.

Thus the arrial of the Preston books in Leeds led to the foundation of

the Leeds Smposium. The earliest of those books isA Booke o Cookry VeryNecessary or All Such as Delight Therein, Gathered by A.W., 1584. (We haeneer discoered the identit of the Elizabethan A.W.) Another edition of

1587 is also in the collection: the contents are identical to those in the 1584

book, but at the end there is a handful of additional recipes for banquet-ting stuffe. Other er earl books to be found there are John Partridges

The Widowes Treasureof1585, and a 1605 edition of Sir Hugh Plats Delightesor Ladies.

There is ineitabl some oerlap with the Blanche Leigh books; for

instance, both the Leigh and Preston collections hae man editions of

Hannah Glasses The Art o Cookery, first published in 1747 as a quarto ol-ume and reissued man times in octao and smaller sizes. The latest Preston

edition is dated 1803; and the Leigh collection includes an abridged ersionof1842. There are seen editions of Eliza Smiths The Compleat Housewieof1727 in the Leigh and eight in the Preston collection; again the holdings

partl complement each other and partl oerlap, the latest being the Leigh

seenteenth edition of1766. Both collections offer a er wide range of

nineteenth-centur books.

The Librars third named collection of cooker books came from a place

rather than a person: the London borough of Camden. Hence it is called

the Camden collection. After the war, the London borough libraries diidedup the Dewe classification and each agreed to collect and house as man

as possible of the new books published in Britain and classed within their

section. Camden was allotted 635 onwards, which is agriculture, and 640

onwards, which is food and drink. In practice a large part of their allocation

fell within 641: cooker books. B the late 1980s Camden Public Librar had

run out of space, and the cooker books were being kept in a Pickfords store

at Swiss Cottage. The Camden librarian adertised in the Library Association

Record, seeking a new home for them; and after man months of negotia-


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tion and a further wait for the books to be decommissioned from Camdens

computer records, the came to Leeds to the Brotherton Librar.

The collection includes a few late-victorian books and man others pub-

lished between 1900 and the late 1940s. These supplement the Leigh books

which are not er numerous for the twentieth centur. But the most notable

feature of the Camden collection is its coerage of English cooker books

published between 1949 and about 1975. The were most welcome, because

our additions of twentieth-centur cooker books hae come b gift or b

er modest purchases. So until the Librar receied the Camden collection,

there were a great man gaps among the books for the period 19001975. It is

Librar polic to continue to add a few titles reflecting current deelopments

in food fashions and cooking and presering techniques. And one da, far

in the future, we shall receie a bequest of the most significant books fromthe 1980s onwards from another food historian.

French influences on English cooker go back to Norman times, and were

certainl in eidence from the 1660s onwards. The substantial French section

of the Blanche Leigh collection makes it possible to pair up French works

with the English translations made from them. In the Librar are seeral

French editions of La varennes Le Cuisinier Franoisfrom 1669 onwards,and also the English translation, entitled The French Cook, in the third edi-

tion of1673. Du Fours De lUsage du Caph, du Th et du Chocolatof1671 isthere; as is The Manner o Making o Coee, Tea and Chocolate, translated inan edition of1685. Lmers Trait des Aliments, second edition, Paris, 1705had alread been translated asA Treatise o Foods in Generaland publishedin London in 1704. The Librar has both. And there are similar pairings for

other significant French titles.

While the majorit of books in English contain collections of cooker

recipes, there are also some relating to food production. The Feminin Mon-

archi or The Histori o Bees(in partiall phonetic spelling) b Charles Butler,1634, and John Hills The Virtues o Honey in Preventing many o the WorstDisorders, the third edition, 1760, are two examples. There is good coeragefor the growing of herbs and for their medicinal usage with Gerards Herballof1597 and Parkinsons Paradisus terrestris(The Earthly Paradise) of1629,both large, handsome books with striking illustrations. A faourite of mine

isA Book o Fruits and Flowers, shewing the Nature and Use o Them eitheror Meat or Medicine, 1653. It has both recipes and pictures, and seeral ears

ago I wrote an introduction for the Prospect Books facsimile reprint.


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Books that deal more directl with gardening methods include Thomas

Tussers Five Hundreth Pointes o Good Husbandrieof1590, and an editionof William Lawsons The Country Housewives Garden issued with the eighth

edition of Gerase Markhams The Way to get Wealth in 1653. These formpart of Blanche Leighs collection, as do books b seeral eighteenth-centur

writers on gardening, including John Laurence and Stephen Switzer; and

Philip Millers The Gardeners Dictionary, the second edition of1733 andthe eighth of1768. French gardening is coered in the two olumes of de

Combles, Lecole du jardin potagerin editions of1752 and 1770.For the cook and housekeeper, John Eelns Acetaria explains how to

sere the salad plants aailable in 1699. For gardeners and cooks there is

Adams Luxury and Eves Cookery, 1744: the first part tells how to grow eg-etables and fruit and the second how to cook them, with a final section onthe phsical, or therapeutic, irtues of seeral garden herbs and roots.

Man of the cooker books include sections on presering, dairing,

brewing and distilling; and also a substantial number of medical recipes.

The are thus household books in the fullest sense. The medical sections in

such books as E. Smith, The Compleat Housewie, 1727 and later editions,and C. Cartwright, The Ladys Best Companionto which is added The Ap-

proved Family Physician, 1789, remind us that until well into the nineteenth

Figure3. Bees in the hive, rom The FemininMonarchi, or The Histori of Bees (1634).

The page also shows the phonetic spellingemployed by Charles Butler.


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centur the housewife had to produce the home-made remedies as well as

the cooked dishes for mealtimes. A few books suppl information on cook-

er for special groups of people. Examples are the chapter For captains of

ships in Hannah Glasses The Art o Cookery, 1747 and man later editions;and the arm meals recommended b A. Soer in Soyers Culinary Campaign(1857) based on his contribution to improing the diet of soldiers on actie

serice in the Crimean War. Another group whose needs were considered

from the late eighteenth centur onwards were the er poor. The Reporto the Society or Bettering the Conditions o the Poor, 1798, explains howsome parishes tackled the problem of proiding nutrition for the destitute.

Charitable cooker is included in M.E. Rundell,A New System o DomesticCookery, 1806 and man later editions; and A. Cobbett, The English House-

keeper, third edition 1842 and sixth edition 1851, has a final chapter titledCooker for the poor. In most cases the principal food on offer was soup

made with some cereal or egetables, plus the trimmings from the meat eaten

b the better-off families who proided this form of charit.

Other tpes of additional information to be found in the books include

directions for marketing, and sample menus (in the eighteenth centur

the menus often take the form of diagrams depicting the arrangement of

the dishes on the table). Glimpses of contemporar life appear inMadam

Johnsons Present, 1755, which contains lessons on arithmetic, letter-writingand an English spelling-dictionar alongside the cooker sections.A NewSystem o Practical Domestic Economy, third edition, 1823, has an appendixshowing the sstem and amount of taxation paable on carriages with four

wheels and on the horses to draw them; and another table listing the taxes

paable on male serants, on a rising scale from 14s 0d for a single one

to 316s 6d each for eleen or more serants in the same household. It is

details like these that suppl fodder for social historians.

Man of the mainstream victorian writers and their cooker books arediscussed b valerie Mars in a separate chapter. A useful analsis of the

progress of English cooker book publication in the nineteenth centur was

made b Lnette Hunter at the seenth Leeds Smposium on Food Histor,

and was subsequentl published b Sutton Publishing in the olume titled

Luncheon, Nuncheon and Other Meals, edited b C. Anne Wilson, 1994.Copies of all the olumes of the papers of the Leeds Smposium hae been

deposited in the Librars cooker book collections.

More than twent periodicals are also represented there. Among the titles


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Figure4. Root vegetables rom the kitchen garden, illustrated in John ParkinsonsParadisus terrestris o1629. 1. Skirrit; 2. Parsnip; 3. Carrot; 4. Turnip; 5. Navew (wild turnip); 6. Black Radish;

7. Common Radish.


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are The Country Magazine for 1736; The Englishwomans Domestic Magazine,185259 and 186263; The Dietetic Reormer, 187286, and its successor, TheVegetarian Messenger, 18871935. Seeral bibliographies of cooker books areaailable for consultation; the older ones in the Blanche Leigh collection hae

been supplemented b others published more recentl. And the Librar holds

oer 60 manuscript cooker books, mostl falling within the period mid-

seenteenth to earl twentieth centur. About half of them were collected b

Blanche Leigh, and the rest hae been added since through gift or purchase.

The Blanche Leigh and John Preston collections are catalogued on the

Librars database, and can be checked out ia authors name, title, and ke-

word. Anone wishing to find out more ma consult the Special Collections

website: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/librar/spcoll/spprint/21200.html which

leads directl to information about the Librars cooker book collections,from where there is a link to the Librars catalogue. Information is also

proided on how to gain access to the Special Collections.

english cookery book

Documents