english cookery book
TRANSCRIPT
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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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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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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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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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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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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.