THE ENGLISH COOKERY BOOK HISTORICAL ESSAYS Frontispiece. The frontispiece to The Housekeeper’s Instructor or Universal Family Cook by W.A. Henderson (sixth edition, ca. 1800). THE ENGLISH COOKERY BOOK HISTORICAL ESSAYS LEEDS SYMPOSIUM ON FOOD HISTORY ‘FOOD AND SOCIETY ’ SERIES edited by EILEEN WHITE PROSPECT BOOKS 2004 First published in 2004 by Prospect Books, Allaleigh House, Blackawton, Totnes, Devon TQ9 7DL. Based on papers from the Sixteenth Leeds Symposium on Food History, March 2001, ‘Books for Cooks, Housekeepers and Social Historians’, with an additional paper. This is the twelfth volume in the series ‘Food and Society’. © 2004 as a collection, Prospect Books (but © 2004 in individual articles rests with the individual authors). The authors assert their right to be identified as the authors of their several pieces in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval sys- tem, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo copying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holder. BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA : A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 1 903018 36 6 Typeset by Tom Jaine. Printed and bound by the Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wiltshire. Contents Acknowledgements 6 Foreword 7 List of Illustrations 8 Notes on Contributors 11 Preface 13 Eileen White Chapter 1 An Introduction to the Cookery Book Collection in the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds C. Anne Wilson 19 Chapter 2 The Language of Medieval Cookery Peter Meredith 28 Chapter 3 A Close Look at the Composition of Sir Hugh Plat’s Delightes for La- dies Malcolm Thick 55 Chapter 4 Domestic English Cookery and Cookery Books, 1575–1675 Eileen White 72 Chapter 5 From Murrell to Jarrin: Illustrations in British Cookery Books, 1621– 1820 Ivan Day 98 Chapter 6 William Alexis Jarrin and The Italian Confectioner Laura Mason 151 Chapter 7 Beyond Beeton: Some Nineteenth-Century Cookery and Household Books in the Brotherton Special Collections Valerie Mars 175 Index 199 5 Ackno W le D ge M ents o the staff, past and present, of Special Collections in the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, are due thanks for their friendly service T over many years of research by the contributors to this volume. 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 by permission of the British Library. Reproduction of the two manuscript plans for dinner at Hatfield House in Chapter 5 is by courtesy of the Marquess of Salisbury. Thanks also to Tom Jaine for bringing everything together. C. Anne Wilson, a former member of the Brotherton Library staff, is a founder member of the Leeds Symposium on Food History. Her book Food and Drink in Britain (1973) has served as an important reference work in the growing study of food history and her fellow-contributors to this book are pleased to acknowledge her continuing interest and support. 6 Fore W or D ‘Food and Society’ Series Publication of papers from the Leeds Symposium on Food History The first six volumes were published by Edinburgh University Press and are now out of print; the following three by Sutton Publishing (two of them in association with The National Trust); the volumes from no. 10 have been published by Prospect Books. The titles, with the series numbers, are: 1. ‘Banquetting Stuffe’: the Fare and Social Background of the Tudor and Stuart Banquet, ed. C.A. Wilson (1986 Symposium), 1991. 2. The Appetite and the Eye: Visual Aspects of Food and its Presentation within their Historic Context, ed. C.A. Wilson (1987 Symposium), 1991. 3. Traditional Food East and West of the Pennines, ed. C.A. Wilson (1988 Symposium), 1991. 4. Waste Not, Want Not: Food Preservation in Britain from Early Times to the Present Day, ed. C.A. Wilson (1989 Symposium), 1991. 5. Liquid Nourishment: Potable Foods and Stimulating Drinks, ed. C.A. Wil- son (1990 Symposium), 1993. 6. Food for the Community: Special Diets for Special Groups, ed. C.A. Wilson (1991 Symposium), 1993. 7. Luncheon, Nuncheon and Other Meals, ed. C.A. Wilson (1992 Sympo- sium), 1994. Now republished in paperback as Eating with the Victorians (Sutton, 2004). 8. The Country House Kitchen, 1650–1900: Skills and Equipment for Food Provisioning, ed. P.A. Sambrook and P. Brears (double volume for 1993 and 1994 Symposia), 1996. 9. The Country House Kitchen Garden, 1600–1950: How Produce was Grown and How it was Used, ed. C.A. Wilson (1995 Symposium), 1998. 10. Feeding a City: York, ed. E. White (double volume for 1997 and 1998 Symposia), 2000. 11. Food and the Rites of Passage, ed. L. Mason (1999 Symposium), 2002. 7 List of Ill U strations Frontispiece. The frontispiece to The Housekeeper’s Instructor or Universal Family Cook by W.A. Henderson (sixth edition, ca. 1800). ..........................................................................................2 Figure 1. Title-page from The Accomplished Ladies Rich Closet of Rarities, 1715. .......................12 Figure 2. Title-page of A Booke of Cookry (1584). .......................................................................21 Figure 3. Bees in the hive, from The Feminin‘ Monarchi‘, or The Histori of Bee‘s (1634). ...........24 Figure 4. Root vegetables from the kitchen garden, illustrated in John Parkinson’s Paradisus terrestris of 1629. ...................................................................................................................................26 Figure 5. Making pasta, from Opera di M. Bartolomeo Scappi (Venice, 1570). ............................30 Figure 6. A field kitchen, from Scappi’s Opera (Venice, 1570). ........................................................34 Figure 7. This illustration from Scappi’s Opera (Venice, 1570) also includes examples of smaller kitchen utensils. ..................................................................................................................................38 Figure 8. Pages from the 1609 edition of Delightes for Ladies, showing the decorative borders. .........56 Figure 9. A page from British Library Sloane MS 2189 (f.64a), showing the respective hands of ‘T.T.’ and Hugh Plat.(Reproduction courtesy of the British Library.) ...................................................58 Figure 10. One of Hugh Plat’s ingenious suggestions in The Jewell House of Art and Nature. ..........68 Figure 11. Frontispiece and title-page to Hannah Wolley’s The Queen-like Closet. ..........................72 Figure 12. Comparison of recipes for verjuice from Gervase Markham, The English House-wife (1631 edition), and Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook (1665 edition). ..........................................78 Figure 13. Comparison of recipes for a ‘Farsed Pudding’ from Murrels Two Bookes of Cookerie and Carving (1638 edition), and Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook (1665 edition). ..................80 Figure 14. The recipe for a Spanish olio from The Compleat Cook (1655). ....................................82 Figures 15 & 16. Two portraits. Queen Henrietta Maria, the frontispiece to The Queens Closet Opened (1655). Elizabeth Cromwell, as shown in the frontispiece to The Court & Kitchin of Elizabeth, Commonly called Joan Cromwel, The Wife of the late Usurper (1664). ...............84 Figure 17. Frontispiece to The Country Housewife and Lady’s Director, by R. Bradley (1736). ......88 Figure 18. A set of manica (jelly bags) for straining the spices out of hippocras. Girolamo Ruscelli, The Secrets of Maister Alexis of Piedmont (London: 1558). .........................................................99 Figure 19. Illustration of a kitchen scene from the Koch und Kellermeisterey (Frankfurt: 1547). ...100 Figure 20. Frontispiece of Hannah Wolley’s The Ladies Delight (London: 1672). .........................102 Figure 21. A woodcut illustration from A Book of Fruits and Flowers (London: 1653). ................102 Figure 22. Engraved frontispiece from Nathan Bailey’s Dictionarium Domesticum, published by Charles Hitch (London: 1736). ............................................................................................104 Figure 23. Table plan to show how sweetmeats and fruit were to be arranged for the ultimo servitio of an Italian feast. From Matthias Giegher’s Li tre trattati (Padua: 1639). .................................106 Figure 24. Two table-layout diagrams from John Murrel’s A Delightful Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen (London: 1621). ..........................................................................................108 Figure 25. A rather debased woodcut copy of Giegher’s banquet table (figure 23), printed in Giles Rose’s A Perfect School of Instructions for the Officers of the Mouth (London: 1682). .................108 Figure 26. Top, a detail of the King and Queen’s table from an engraved plate by S. Moore in Francis Sandford’s The History of the Coronation of James II (London: 1687). Bottom, Sandford’s table plan of the same table. .........................................................................................................109 Figure 27. (Top) A plan for a table from Giegher’s Li tre trattati (Padua: 1639). (Below left) A wood- cut of an identical table plan from Rose (London: 1682). (Below right) A similar, though more complex table-layout from Patrick Lamb’s Royal Cookery