Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine by William Carew Hazlitt

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The Mansion House still retains the ancient usage of distributing the
relics of a great feast afterwards among the poor, as Cromwell is said
just above to have made a rule of his household. It was a practice
highly essential in the absence of any organised system of relief.

The reign of Charles II., which witnessed a relationship with France
of a very different character from that which the English maintained
during the Plantagenet and earlier Tudor rule, was favourable to the
naturalisation of the Parisian school of cookery, and numerous works
were published at and about that time, in which the development of
knowledge in this direction is shown to have taken place _pari passu_
with the advance in gardening and arboriculture under the auspices of
Evelyn.

In 1683 we come to a little volume entitled "The Young Cook's
Monitor," by M.H., who made it public for the benefit of his (or her)
scholars; a really valuable and comprehensive manual, wherein, without
any attempt at arrangement, there is an ample assemblage of directions
for preparing for the table all kinds of joints, made dishes, soups
and broths, _frigacies_, puddings, pies, tarts, tansies, and jellies.
Receipts for pickling are included, and two ways are shown how we
should treat turnips after this wise. Some of the ingredients
proposed for sauces seem to our ears rather prodigious. In one place
a contemporary peruser has inserted an ironical calculation in MS. to
the effect that, whereas a cod's head could be bought for fourpence,
the condiments recommended for it were not to be had for less than
nine shillings. The book teaches us to make Scotch collops, to pickle
lemons and quinces, to make French bread, to collar beef, pork, or
eels, to make gooseberry fool, to dry beef after the Dutch fashion, to
make sack posset two ways, to candy flowers (violets, roses, etc.) for
salads, to pickle walnuts like mangoes, to make flummery, to make a
carp pie, to pickle French beans and cucumbers, to make damson and
quince wines, to make a French pudding (called a Pomeroy pudding), to
make a leg of pork like a Westphalia ham, to make mutton as beef, and
to pot beef to eat like venison.

These and many other precepts has M.H. left behind him; and a sort of
companion volume, printed a little before, goes mainly over the same
ground, to wit, "Rare and Excellent Receipts Experienced and Taught
by Mrs. Mary Tillinghast, and now printed for the use of her scholars
only," 1678. The lady appealed to a limited constituency, like M.H.;
but her pages, such as they are (for there are but thirty), are now
_publici juris_. The lesson to be drawn from Mistress Tillinghast's
printed labours is that, among our ancestors in 1678, pies and pasties
of all sorts, and sweet pastry, were in increased vogue. Her slender
volume is filled with elucidations on the proper manufacture of paste
of various sorts; and in addition to the pies designated by M.H. we
encounter a Lombard pie, a Battalia pie, an artichoke pie, a potato
(or secret) pie, a chadron [Footnote: A pie chiefly composed of a
calf's chadroa] pie, and a herring pie. The fair author takes care
to instruct us as to the sauces or dressings which are to accompany
certain of her dishes.

"The Book of Cookery," 1500, of which there was a reprint by John
Byddell about 1530 was often republished, with certain modifications,
down to 1650, under the titles of "A Proper New Book of Cookery,"
or "The Book of Cookery." Notwithstanding the presence of many
competitors, it continued to be a public favourite, and perhaps
answered the wants of those who did not desire to see on their tables
the foreign novelties introduced by travellers, or advertised in
collections of receipts borrowed from other languages.

In fact, the first half of the seventeenth century did not witness
many accessions to the store of literature on this subject. But from
the time of the Commonwealth, the supply of works of reference for the
housekeeper and the cook became much more regular and extensive. In
1653, Selden's friend, the Countess of Kent, brought out her "Choice
Manual of Physic and Chirurgery," annexing to it receipts for
preserving and candying; and there were a few others, about the same
time, of whose works I shall add here a short list:--

1. The Accomplished Cook. By Robert May. 8vo, 1660. Fifth edition,
8vo, 1685.

2. The Whole Body of Cookery Dissected. By Will. Rabisha. 8vo, 1661.

3. The Queen-like Closet: a Rich Cabinet, stored with all manner of
rare receipts. By Hannah Wolley. 8vo, 1670.

4. The True Way of Preserving and Candying, and making several sorts
of Sweetmeats. Anon. 8vo, 1681.

5. The Complete Servant-Maid. 12 mo, 1682-3.

6. A Choice Collection of Select Remedies.... Together with excellent
Directions for Cooking, and also for Preserving and Conserving. By G.
Hartman [a Chemist]. 8vo, 1684.

7. A Treatise of Cleanness in Meats and Drinks, of the Preparation of
Food, etc. By Thomas Tryon. 4to, 1682.

8. The Genteel Housekeeper's Pastime; or, The mode of Carving at the
Table represented in a Pack of Playing Cards. 8vo, 1693.

9. A New Art of Brewing Beer, Ale, and other sorts of Liquors. By T.
Tryon. 12mo, 1690-91.

10. The Way to get Wealth; or, A New and Ready Way to make
twenty-three sorts of Wines, equal to that of France ... also to make
Cyder.... By the same. 12mo, 1702.

11. A Treatise of Foods in General. By Louis Lemery. Translated into
English. 8vo, 1704.

12. England's Newest Way in all sorts of Cookery. By Henry Howard,
Free Cook of London. Second edition, 8vo, 1708.

13. Royal Cookery; or, the Complete Court-Cook. By Patrick Lamb, Esq.,
near 50 years Master-Cook to their late Majesties King Charles II.,
King James II., King William, Mary, and to her present Majesty, Queen
Anne. 8vo, 1710. Third edition, 8vo, 1726.

14. The Queen's Royal Cookery. By J. Hall, Free Cook of London. 12mo,
1713-15.

15. Mrs. Mary Eales' Receipts, Confectioner to her late Majesty, Queen
Anne. 8vo, 1718.

16. A Collection of three hundred Receipts in Cookery, Physic, and
Surgery. In two parts, 8vo, 1729.

17. The Complete City and Country Cook. By Charles Carter. 8vo, 1732.

18. The Complete Housewife. Seventh edition, 8vo, 1736.

19. The Complete Family Piece: A very choice Collection of Receipts.
Second edition, 8vo, 1737.

20. The Modern Cook. By Vincent La Chapelle, Cook to the Prince of
Orange. Third edition. 8vo, 1744.

21. A Treatise of all sorts of Foods. By L. Lemery. Translated by D.
Hay, M.D. 8vo, 1745.

This completes the list of books, so far as they have fallen in my
way, or been pointed out by the kindness of friends, down to the
middle of the last century.

It was probably Charles, Duke of Bolton (1698-1722), who was at one
time Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and who in the beginning of his ducal
career, at all events, resided in St. James's Street, that possessed
successively as head-cooks John Nott and John Middleton. To each of
these artists we owe a volume of considerable pretensions, and the
"Cook's and Confectioner's Dictionary," 1723, by the former, is
positively a very entertaining and cyclopedic publication. Nott
inscribes his book "To all Good Housewives," and declares that he
placed an Introduction before it merely because fashion had made it
as strange for a book to appear without one as for a man to be seen
in church without a neckcloth or a lady without a hoop-petticoat. He
congratulates himself and his readers on living in a land flowing with
milk and honey, quotes the saw about God sending meat and somebody
else sending cooks, and accounts for his omission of pigments by
saying, like a gallant man, that his countrywomen little needed such
things. Nott opens with _Some Divertisements in Cookery, us'd at
Festival-Times, as Twelfth-Day, etc._, which are highly curious,
and his dictionary itself presents the novelty of being arranged,
lexicon-wise, alphabetically. He seems to have been a fairly-read and
intelligent man, and cites, in the course of his work, many celebrated
names and receipts. Thus we have:--To brew ale Sir Jonas Moore's way;
to make Dr. Butler's purging ale; ale of health and strength, by the
Viscount St. Albans; almond butter the Cambridge way; to dress a leg
of mutton _a la Dauphine_; to dress mutton the Turkish way; to stew
a pike the City way. Dr. Twin's, Dr. Blacksmith's, and Dr. Atkin's
almond butter; an amber pudding, according to the Lord Conway's
receipt; the Countess of Rutland's Banbury cake; to make Oxford cake;
to make Portugal cakes; and so on. Nott embraces every branch of his
subject, and furnishes us with bills of fare for every month of the
year, terms and rules of carving, and the manner of setting out
a dessert of fruits and sweetmeats. There is a singular process
explained for making China broth, into which an ounce of china is
to enter. Many new ways had been gradually found of utilising the
materials for food, and vegetables were growing more plentiful. The
carrot was used in soups, puddings, and tarts. Asparagus and spinach,
which are wanting in all the earlier authorities, were common, and the
barberry had come into favour. We now begin to notice more frequent
mention of marmalades, blanc-manges, creams, biscuits, and sweet
cakes. There is a receipt for a carraway cake, for a cabbage pudding,
and for a chocolate tart.

The production by his Grace of Bolton's other _chef_, John Middleton,
is "Five Hundred New Receipts in Cookery, Confectionary, Pastry,
Preserving, Conserving, Pickling," and the date is 1734. Middleton
doubtless borrowed a good deal from his predecessor; but he also
appears to have made some improvements in the science. We have here
the methods, to dress pikes _a la sauce Robert_, to make blackcaps
(apples baked in their skins); to make a Wood Street cake; to make
Shrewsbury cakes; to dress a leg of mutton like a gammon of bacon;
to dress eggs _a la Augemotte_; to make a dish of quaking pudding of
several colours; to make an Italian pudding, and to make an Olio. The
eye seems to meet for the first time with hasty pudding, plum-porridge
(an experiment toward the solidification of the older plum-broth),
rolled beef-steaks, samphire, hedgehog cream (so called from its
shape, currants being used for the eyes, and cut almonds for the
bristles), cocks'-combs, orange, spinach and bean tarts, custards
in cups (the 1723 book talks of jellies served on china plates), and
lastly, jam--the real jam of these days, made to last, as we are
told, the whole year. There is an excellent prescription for making
elderberry wine, besides, in which Malaga raisins are to be largely
used. "In one year," says our _chef_, "it will be as good and as
pleasant as French wine."

Let us extract the way "to make Black-caps":--"Take a dozen of good
pippins, cut them in halves, and take out the cores; then place them
on a right Mazarine dish with the skins on, the cut side downwards;
put to them a very little water, scrape on them some loaf sugar, put
them in a hot oven till the skins are burnt black, and your apples
tender; serve them on Plates strew'd over with sugar."

Of these books, I select the preface to "The Complete Housewife," by
E. Smith, 1736, because it appears to be a somewhat more ambitious
endeavour in an introductory way than the authors of such undertakings
usually hazard. From the last paragraph we collect that the writer was
a woman, and throughout she makes us aware that she was a person of
long practical experience. Indeed, as the volume comprehends a variety
of topics, including medicines, Mrs. or Miss Smith must have been
unusually observant, and have had remarkable opportunities of making
herself conversant with matters beyond the ordinary range of culinary
specialists. I propose presently to print a few samples of her
workmanship, and a list of her principal receipts in that section of
the book with which I am just now concerned. First of all, here is the
Preface, which begins, as we see, by a little piece of plagiarism from
Nott's exordium:--

"_PREFACE._

"It being grown as unfashionable for a book now to appear in publick
without a preface, as for a lady to appear at a ball without a
hoop-petticoat, I shall conform to custom for fashion-sake, and not
through any necessity. The subject being both common and universal,
needs no arguments to introduce it, and being so necessary for the
gratification of the appetite, stands in need of no encomiums
to allure persons to the practice of it; since there are but few
now-a-days who love not good eating and drinking. Therefore I entirely
quit those two topicks; but having three or four pages to be filled
up previous to the subject it self, I shall employ them on a subject I
think new, and not yet handled by any of the pretenders to the art of
cookery; and that is, the antiquity of it; which if it either instruct
or divert, I shall be satisfied, if you are so.

"Cookrey, confectionary, &c., like all other sciences and arts, had
their infancy, and did not arrive at a state of maturity but by slow
degrees, various experiments, and a long tract of time: for in the
infant-age of the world, when the new inhabitants contented themselves
with the simple provision of nature, viz. the vegetable diet, the
fruits and production of the teeming ground, as they succeeded one
another in their several peculiar seasons, the art of cookery was
unknown; apples, nuts, and herbs, were both meat and sauce, and
mankind stood in no need of any additional sauces, ragoes, &c., but a
good appetite; which a healthful and vigorous constitution, a clear,
wholesome, odoriferous air, moderate exercise, and an exemption from
anxious cares, always supplied them with.

"We read of no palled appetites, but such as proceeded from the decays
of nature by reason of an advanced old age; but on the contrary a
craving stomach, even upon a death-bed, as in Isaac: nor no sicknesses
but those that were both the first and the last, which proceeded from
the struggles of nature, which abhorred the dissolution of soul and
body; no physicians to prescribe for the sick, nor no apothecaries
to compound medicines for two thousand years and upwards. Food and
physick were then one and the same thing.

"But when men began to pass from a vegetable to an animal diet, and
feed on flesh, fowls, and fish, then seasonings grew necessary, both
to render it more palatable and savoury, and also to preserve that
part which was not immediately spent from stinking and corruption: and
probably salt was the first seasoning discover'd; for of salt we read,
Gen. xiv.

"And this seems to be necessary, especially for those who were
advanced in age, whose palates, with their bodies, had lost their
vigour as to taste, whose digestive faculty grew weak and impotent;
and thence proceeded the use of soops and savoury messes; so that
cookery then began to become a science, though luxury had not brought
it to the height of an art. Thus we read, that Jacob made such
palatable pottage, that Esau purchased a mess of it at the extravagant
price of his birthright. And Isaac, before by his last will and
testament he bequeathed his blessing to his son Esau, required him
to make some savoury meat, such as his soul loved, i.e., such as was
relishable to his blunted palate.

"So that seasonings of some sort were then in use; though whether
they were salt, savoury herbs, or roots only; or spices, the fruits
of trees, such as pepper, cloves, nutmeg; bark, as cinnamon; roots, as
ginger, &c., I shall not determine.

"As for the methods of the cookery of those times, boiling or stewing
seems to have been the principal; broiling or roasting the next;
besides which, I presume scarce any other were used for two thousand
years and more; for I remember no other in the history of Genesis.

"That Esau was the first cook, I shall not presume to assert; for
Abraham gave order to dress a fatted calf; but Esau is the first
person mentioned that made any advances beyond plain dressing, as
boiling, roasting, &c. For though we find indeed, that Rebecca his
mother was accomplished with the skill of making savoury meat as
well as he, yet whether he learned it from her, or she from him, is a
question too knotty for me to determine.

"But cookery did not long remain a simple science, or a bare piece
of housewifry or family ceconomy, but in process of time, when luxury
entered the world, it grew to an art, nay a trade; for in I Sam. viii.
13. when the Israelites grew fashionists, and would have a king, that
they might be like the rest of their neighbours, we read of cooks,
confectioners, &c.

"This art being of universal use, and in constant practice, has been
ever since upon the improvement; and we may, I think, with good reason
believe, is arrived at its greatest height and perfection, if it
is not got beyond it, even to its declension; for whatsoever new,
upstart, out-of-the-way messes some humourists have invented, such as
stuffing a roasted leg of mutton with pickled herring, and the like,
are only the sallies of a capricious appetite, and debauching rather
than improving the art itself.

"The art of cookery, &c., is indeed diversified according to the
diversity of nations or countries; and to treat of it in that latitude
would fill an unportable volume; and rather confound than improve
those that would accomplish themselves with it. I shall therefore
confine what I have to communicate within the limits of practicalness
and usefulness, and so within the compass of a manual, that shall
neither burthen the hands to hold, the eyes in reading, nor the mind
in conceiving.

"What you will find in the following sheets, are directions generally
for dressing after the best, most natural, and wholesome manner, such
provisions as are the product of our own country, and in such a manner
as is most agreeable to English palates: saving that I have so far
temporized, as, since we have to our disgrace so fondly admired the
French tongue, French modes, and also French messes, to present you
now and then with such receipts of French cookery, as I think may not
be disagreeable to English palates.

"There are indeed already in the world various books that treat on
this subject, and which bear great names, as cooks to kings, princes,
and noblemen, and from which one might justly expect something more
than many, if not most of these I have read, perform, but found
my self deceived in my expectations; for many of them to us are
impracticable, others whimsical, others unpalatable, unless to
depraved palates; some unwholesome, many things copied from old
authors, and recommended without (as I am persuaded) the copiers ever
having had any experience of the palatableness, or had any regard to
the wholesomness of them; which two things ought to be the standing
rules, that no pretenders to cookery ought to deviate from. And I
cannot but believe, that those celebrated performers, notwithstanding
all their professions of having ingenuously communicated their art,
industriously concealed their best receipts from the publick.

"But what I here present the world with is the product of my own
experience, and that for the space of thirty years and upwards; during
which time I have been constantly employed in fashionable and noble
families, in which the provisions ordered according to the following
directions, have had the general approbation of such as have been at
many noble entertainments.

"These receipts are all suitable to English constitutions and
English palates, wholesome, toothsome, all practicable and easy to
be performed. Here are those proper for a frugal, and also for a
sumptuous table, and if rightly observed, will prevent the spoiling
of many a good dish of meat, the waste of many good materials, the
vexation that frequently attends such mismanagements, and the curses
not unfrequently bestowed on cooks with the usual reflection, that
whereas God sends good meat, the devil sends cooks.

"As to those parts that treat of confectionary, pickles, cordials,
English wines, &c., what I have said in relation to cookery is equally
applicable to them also.

"It is true, I have not been so numerous in receipts as some who have
gone before me, but I think I have made amends in giving none but what
are approved and practicable, and fit either for a genteel or a noble
Table; and altho' I have omitted odd and fantastical messes, yet I
have set down a considerable number of receipts.

"The treatise is divided into ten parts: cookery contains above an
hundred receipts, pickles fifty, puddings above fifty, pastry above
forty, cakes forty, creams and jellies above forty, preserving an
hundred, made wines forty, cordial waters and powders above seventy,
medicines and salves above two hundred; in all near eight hundred.

"I have likewise presented you with schemes engraven on copper-plates
for the regular disposition or placing the dishes of provision on the
table according to the best manner, both for summer and winter, first
and second courses, &c.

"As for the receipts for medicines, salves, ointments, good in several
diseases, wounds, hurts, bruises, aches, pains, &c., which amount to
above two hundred, they are generally family receipts, that have never
been made publick; excellent in their kind, and approved remedies,
which have not been obtained by me without much difficulty; and of
such efficacy in distempers, &c., to which they are appropriated, that
they have cured when all other means have failed; and a few of them
which I have communicated to a friend, have procured a very handsome
livelihood.

"They are very proper for those generous, charitable, and Christian
gentlewomen that have a disposition to be serviceable to their poor
country neighbours, labouring under any of the afflicted circumstances
mentioned; who by making the medicines, and generously contributing
as occasions offer, may help the poor in their afflictions, gain
their good-will and wishes, entitle themselves to their blessings and
prayers, and also have the pleasure of seeing the good they do in this
world, and have good reason to hope for a reward (though not by way of
merit) in the world to come.

"As the whole of this collection has cost me much pains and a thirty
years' diligent application, and I have had experience of their use
and efficacy, I hope they will be as kindly accepted, as by me they
are generously offered to the publick: and if they prove to the
advantage of many, the end will be answered that is proposed by her
that is ready to serve the publick in what she may."

COOKERY BOOKS.

PART II.

SELECT EXTRACTS FROM AN EARLY RECEIPT-BOOK.

The earliest school of English Cookery, which had such a marked
Anglo-Norman complexion, has been familiarised to us by the
publication of Warner's _Antiquitates Culinaricae_, 1791, and more
recently by the appearance of the "Noble Book of Cookery" in Mrs.
Napier's edition, not to mention other aids in the same way, which are
accessible; and it seemed to be doing a better service, when it became
a question of selecting a few specimens of old receipts, to resort
to the representative of a type of culinary philosophy and sentiment
somewhere midway between those which have been rendered easy of
reference and our own. I have therefore given in the few following
pages, in a classified shape, some of the highly curious contents of
E. Smith's "Compleat Housewife," 1736, which maybe securely taken to
exhibit the state of knowledge in England upon this subject in the
last quarter of the seventeenth century and first quarter of the
succeeding one. In the work itself no attempt at arrangement is
offered.

I.--MEAT, POULTRY, ETC.

_To make Dutch-beef_:--Take the lean part of a buttock of beef raw;
rub it well with brown sugar all over, and let it lie in a pan or tray
two or three hours, turning it three or four times; then salt it well
with common salt and salt-petre, and let it lie a fortnight, turning
it every day; then roll it very strait in a coarse cloth, and put it
in a cheese-press a day and a night, and hang it to dry in a chimney.
When you boil it, you must put it in a cloth: when 'tis cold, it will
cut out into shivers as Dutch-beef.

_To dry Mutton to cut out in Shivers as Dutch-Beef_:--Take a middling
leg of mutton, then take half a pound of brown sugar, and rub it hard
all over your mutton, and let it lie twenty-four hours; then take an
ounce and half of saltpetre, and mix it with a pound of common salt,
and rub that all over the mutton every other day, till 'tis all on,
and let it lie nine days longer; keep the place free from brine, then
hang it up to dry three days, then smoke it in a chimney where wood is
burnt; the fire must not be too hot; a fortnight will dry it. Boil
it like other hams, and when 'tis cold, cut it out in shivers like
Dutch-beef.

_To stuff a Shoulder or Leg of Mutton with Oysters_:--Take a little
grated bread, some beef-suet, yolks of hard eggs, three anchovies,
a bit of an onion, salt and pepper, thyme and winter-savoury, twelve
oysters, some nutmeg grated; mix all these together, and shred them
very fine, and work them up with raw eggs like a paste, and stuff your
mutton under the skin in the thickest place, or where you please, and
roast it; and for sauce take some of the oyster-liquor, some claret,
two or three anchovies, a little nutmeg, a bit of an onion, the rest
of the oysters: stew all these together, then take out the onion, and
put it under the mutton.

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