The main attraction of the very early English cook-book, it must be confessed, is its rarity, to which may be added its quaint title-page and foreword, and sometimes its frontispiece and woodcuts. No new salads will be discovered in its repertory to tempt the epicure, or few dishes that will provoke his appetite. The text is usually difficult to interpret, and, beyond singular alimentary mixtures which attest the remarkable receptive qualities of our forefathers, it contains little to interest the average reader. In this respect it differs largely from the olden works on gardening, through whose leaves still wantons the breeze of June, and chaffinch, cushat, and throstle sing. The fact is, it requires a master to render even a modern culinary treatise entertaining; the majority of ancient cook-books are for the most part mere curiosities. There is no Andrew Marvell of eating, or Parkinson of dining. "The reflection that appreciates, applied to the science that improves," as M. de Borose has aptly defined gastronomy, is a comparatively recent product, an outcome of advancement and civilising influences, and therefore it is hardly to be looked for in primitive compilations.

A poetical cook-book might have been composed by Walton had he devoted as much attention to the saucepans as he did to the rod; for the "Compleat Angler" shows him to have been fond of a good repast as it was then understood, even to preparing the fish himself with the limited conveniences available at the Thatched House. As it is, some of his numerous recipes and his allusions to barley-wine are poetical in an eminent degree, and cause one to regret that he is not also the author of a "Compleat Housewife." No modern, it is true, would wish to experiment with his prescripts for cooking trout and chavender, unless by proxy; like most of the recipes of the olden school, they are infinitely more amusing to read than they would prove pleasing to savour.

Earliest of the English works on cookery is Alexander Neckam's "De Utensilibus, or Treatise on Utensils," written at the close of the twelfth century, two hundred years anterior to the introduction of parsley in flavouring. In this treatise, which purports to instruct young housekeepers in maintaining a well-ordered establishment, Latin and Norman French are the languages almost exclusively employed. Of other very old works may be enumerated "The Forme of Cury," with its one hundred and ninety-six recipes, compiled by the chief cooks of Richard II; the "Liber Cure Cocorum"; the "Kalendare de Potages dyuers and Leche Metys," dating about 1430; John Russell's "Boke of Nurture," composed about 1450; "The Noble Boke of Cookry," first printed in 1500; "The Boke of Keruynge," or Book of Carving, a small manual printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1508; and the "Via Recta ad Vitam Longam," or The Right Way to Long Life, of Tobias Venner, a physician of Shakespeare's time. Over any and all of these, some of which exist only in manuscript, the student may burn the midnight oil; black-letter Chaucer being easy sailing compared with the breakers of old cookery books. Much of the so-called scientific cookery of early England was French, though many of the French titles become strangely perverted and are frequently difficult to recognise; as, for instance, "let" for lait, "vyaunt" for viande, "fryit," for froide, "sauke" for sauce, etc. The first works that may be termed English date only from the latter half of the seventeenth century.

The English, four and five hundred years ago, had four meals daily,—breakfast at seven, dinner at ten, supper at four, and livery at eight. Since then, from an early hour in the morning the principal daily meal has advanced equally in France and England through every hour from ten in the forenoon until ten at night. In France in the thirteenth century nine in the morning was the dinner-hour. Henry VII dined at eleven. In Cromwell's time, one o'clock had come to be the fashionable hour, and in Addison's day two o'clock, which gradually became adjourned until four. Pope found fault with Lady Suffolk for dining so late as four, saying young people might become inured to such things, but as for himself, if she would adopt such unreasonable practices he must absent himself from Marble Hill. Four and five continued to be the popular dining-hour among the better classes until the second decade of the century, when dinner was further postponed, from which period it has steadily continued to encroach upon the evening.

The strong stomach of the early Briton, fortified by abundant out-of-door exercise, was proof against dyspepsia, and was enabled to digest the coarsest and most strongly seasoned foods. Whale, porpoise, seal, and grampus were common dishes. Besides such seasonings as ginger, cinnamon, galingale, cloves, garlic, and vinegar, copiously used in preparations where they would seem most incongruous, ale was generously employed. Almond-milk was also a common ingredient, while marrow was in great favour. Of breadstuffs the fifteenth century had an abundant variety,—pain-main, or bread of very fine flour, wheat-bread, barley-meal bread, bran-bread, pease-bread, oat-bread or oat-cakes, hard-bread, and unleavened bread. The poor often used a mixture of rye, lentils, and oatmeal, varied according to the season and district.

The author of the "Book of Nurture" describes himself as usher and marshal to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, delighting in his work and desirous of training worthy successors in the mysteries of managing a well-appointed household:

This exordium is followed by minute directions for carving meats, fish, and fowls; rules for general behaviour; a disquisition on wines, meats, soups, and sauces; a recipe for hippocras; hints to the chamberlain, butler, taster, dinner arranger, etc. The work is both ambitious and elaborate, thoroughly covering the subject as it was comprehended by the writer's predecessors and his own inventive genius. A passage or two from the chapters headed "Diuerce Sawces" and "Sawce for Fische" will give one an idea of the style of his treatise:

It will be seen from this brief extract that Russell's larder was in no wise wanting for the gustatory entertainment of his lordship, his resources being yet more apparent in the chapter relative to the proper sauces for fish:

In like manner, the first page or introduction to "The Boke of Keruynge" will present at a glance many of the forms of food that were in use at the time, especial reference being made to the terms employed by the English carver. The writer attacks his subject boldly—much as an old angling-master describes a trout rushing for the palmer-fly at night—and is apparently thoroughly acquainted with his important function:

¶ Here begynneth the boke of Keruynge and sewynge " and all the feestes in the yere, for the seruyce of a prynce or ony other estate, as ye shall fynde eche offyce, the seruyce accordynge, in this boke folowynge.

¶ Terms of a Keruer

• Breke that dere
• lesche yt brawne
• rere that goose
• lyft that swanne
• sauce that capo
• spoyle that henne
• frusshe that chekyn
• vnbrace that malarde
• vnlace that cony
• dysmember that heron
• dysplaye that crane
• dysfygure that pecocke
• vnioynt that bytture
• vntache that curlewe
• alaye that fesande
• wynge that partryche
• wynge that quayle
• mynce that plouer
• thye that pegyon
• border that pasty
• thye that wodcocke
• thye all maner of small byrdes
• tymbre that fyre
• tyere that egge
• chyne that samon
• strynge that lampraye
• splatte that pyke
• sauce that playce
• sauce that tenche
• splay that breme
• syde that haddocke
• tuske that barbell
• culpon that troute
• fynne that cheuen
• traussene that ele
• traunche that sturgyon
• vndertraunche yt purpos
• tayme that crabbe
• barbe that lopster
• ¶ Here hendeth the goodly termes.
• ¶ Here begynneth
• Butler and
• Panter.

On the title-page of the volume is a picture of two ladies and two gentlemen at dinner, with an attendant bringing a dish, two servants at a side-table, and a jester. The dish was doubtless well spiced with ginger, and washed down with malmsey, clarrey, or renysshe wine, if not with ypocras or some other potent liquid accompaniment.

The expressions "vnbrace that malarde" and "dysmember that heron" assure one that a wild fowl, however coriaceous, must have quickly succumbed to the manipulation of his glittering steel. In no form of carving, whether of meats, poultry, or game, does the skill of the carver appear to greater advantage than in disjointing wild fowl. This indeed calls for a trenchant blade and a thoroughly competent practitioner. Witness the artist who follows every joint and ligament as a stream follows its varying curves, and who lays out the rosy breast just as if it had stopped beating in its flight. The ghosts of many a mallard, broad-bill, and teal must quake in horror when they remember the fate that awaited their earthly lot after their course had been checked by the fowler and they fell into hands unworthy to conduct their post-mortem. But the duck has been avenged by an anonymous bard who has execrated the ruthless matador as he deserves:

In the "Kalendare de Potages dyuers" appears this recipe for A goos in hogepotte: "Take a Goos, & make hure clene, & hacke hyre to gobettys, & put yn a potte, & Water to, & sethe togederys; than take Pepir & Brennyd brede or Blode y-boylyd, & grynd y-fere Gyngere & Galyngale & Comyn, & temper vppe with Ale, and putte it ther-to; & mynce Oynonys, & frye hem in freysshe grece, & do ther-to a porcyon of Wyne."

A strange entremets was one termed Vyolette, accompanied by these directions: "Take Flourys of Vyolet, boyle hem, presse hem, bray hem smal, temper hem vppe with Almaunde mylke, or gode Cowe Mylke, a-lye it with Amyndown or Flowre of Rys; take Sugre y-now, an putte ther-to, or hony in defaute; coloure it with the same that the flowrys be on y'peynted a-boue."

That excellent dish civet of hare was termed Harys in Cyueye, saffron, ale, and vinegar being then utilised in its preparation. Pain perdu figured as Payn pur-dew, and may have been as useful then as now for a simple dessert where a saving of time and material entered into consideration, the olden recipe being not unlike that of modern times. Oysters are presented as Oystres in cevey, Oystres in grauey bastard, and Oystres in bruette. There are also Fylettys en Galentyne, Lange Wortys de chare, Blamanger of Fysshe, Ruschewys of Marw, Pety permantes, Chawettys a-forsed, Flathonys, and similar curious compounds. Meat-and fish-pies were known by the French appellation "crustade," the favourite English pork-pie being apparently unfamiliar to very olden writers, or else so disguised as to be unrecognisable.

Boar-pies were known, however, in Elizabeth's era, when they were esteemed a great dainty. A consignment of these, it is related, was sent by Sir Robert Sydney, while governor of Flushing in The Hague, to his wife as a bait to propitiate the ministers to grant him a leave of absence. The pies were duly presented by Lady Sydney to Lord Essex and my Lord Treasurer, and proved so excellent that the next time the petition of Sir Robert was presented to her Majesty the secretary knelt down, beseeching her to hear him in behalf of her homesick ambassador, and to license his return for six weeks. It is probable that the queen herself did not share in the presents, inasmuch as she remained obdurate to the pleadings of the ministers and the ladies of the court.

Under the rule of Elizabeth, fish formed an important article of diet, statute laws being established for their consumption, with heavy penalties to the offender—a measure adopted for the better maintenance of shipping interests and the lesser consumption of flesh food. Besides the usual Lenten obligations to Neptune, Friday and Saturday of each week were additionally set apart for fish days, an alimentary compulsion which soon became extremely distasteful.

Numerous bills of fare of banquets are given in the "Kalendare," including that of the coronation of Henry IV and the banquet of his second marriage in 1404. It would appear that the ecclesiasts were among the most princely entertainers, as evidenced by the bills of fare of the feast of Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln; a dinner given by John Chandler, Bishop of Salisbury; an entertainment held in 1424 on the occasion of the funeral of Nicholas Budwith, Bishop of Bath and Wells; and several others. In point of variety these feasts might rank with those of ancient Rome. Venison, boar's head, veal, oxen, and various pieces of roast figure in the courses. Among the birds and wild fowl were capons, herons, cranes, peacocks, swans, pheasants, and wild geese, together with innumerable smaller kinds, such as plover, fieldfares, partridges, quail, snipe, teal, curlew, woodcock, and larks. But the elaborate banquet where as many as a hundred and four peacocks dressed in their plumage were included among the "subtleties" was by no means a common occurrence, and the accounts of these entertainments, together with the lavish festivities of Christmas, should not be accepted as a criterion of the usual mode of English living among the wealthy. The division line between the rich and the poor, besides, was far more marked than at present, and it is questionable whether even the higher classes, despite their occasional excessive prodigality, maintained the same luxurious state of service the year round as their modern successors.

The many carols on the boar's head and on ale which have come down to us from old MSS. show in what request the one stood as a viand and the other as a beverage. At certain seasons it was the habitual custom to serve a particular dish first, as a boar's head at Christmas,—

a goose at Michaelmas, and a gammon of bacon at Easter. The boar's head was set upon its neck upon the platter, with an apple or a lemon in its mouth and sprigs of rosemary in its ears and nose, the platter being additionally decorated with garlands. Thus garnished and heralded by trumpets, it was borne to the king's table on a salver of gold or silver by the server, followed by a procession of nobles, knights, and ladies. In Scotland it was sometimes brought to table surrounded by banners displaying the colours and achievements of the baron at whose board it was served. From time immemorial the double loin or baron of beef has been a royal dish, and one especially selected is always sent from Windsor to Osborne to appear at the dinner-table, accompanied by that other Christmas dish, the boar's head, sent of late from Germany. The oldest carol on the boar's head is probably that of the Balliol MS., of which there are numerous versions:

An olden Christmas feast wherein the wild boar forms the piÈce de rÉsistance is also figured in King's "Art of Cookery," the only English work except "The Philosopher's Banquet," by "W. B.," that has discoursed on gastronomy to any considerable extent in verse:

The seventeenth century was prolific of cook-books, most of which continued to republish the ancient recipes, with but slight augmentations or changes. Many of the old-fashioned dishes still appear in "The Art of Cookery Refined and Augmented," a treatise published in 1654 by Joseph Cooper, former kitchener of Charles I. These indigestibilities abound in "The English Housewife" of Gervaise Markham, an early production of the century, which reached its eighth edition in 1675, "much augmented, purged, and made most profitable and necessary for all men, and the general good of this Nation."[16]

It may be assumed that Markham's recipes were not original with him, but were compiled mostly from anterior works; we have no knowledge of his having been a practical cook. For that matter, he states in his dedication to the Countess Dowager of Exeter that he does not "assume to himself the full invention and scope of the work, for it is true that much of it was a manuscript which many years agone belonged to an Honourable Countess, one of the greatest Glories of our Kingdom." The material, therefore, is due mainly to a member of the gentler sex, while Markham is responsible for the liaison. A voluminous author, he did not hesitate to appropriate whatever material he could find on any topic, more especially on husbandry and angling, and send it out as his own. It is well known, for example, that his "Art of Fishing" in his "Country Contentments" is only a prose rendition of Dennys' attractive poem "The Secrets of Angling." He has been spoken of as the first hack writer of England, all subjects seeming to have been alike to him. So that "The English Housewife," which also includes much interesting information on physics, the dairy, etc., may be regarded as virtually a work of the Elizabethan period.

In Markham's treatise there is a sauce for green-geese and one for stubble-geese, a sauce for pigeons and stock-doves, a gallantine for bitterns, bustards, and herns. A quelquechose was a fricassee or a mixture of many ingredients, and meats broiled upon the coals were termed carbonadoes. Verjuice was made from crab-apples, to which damask-rose leaves were added previous to fermentation. Vinegar was frequently made from ale placed in the sun to sour, and flavoured with leaves of damask roses. A recipe for hippocras is naturally given, together with directions for the manufacture of all manner of wines and beverages. Puddings, pies, and tarts were still more familiar then than now. Of pies there was an infinite assortment—from Olave, marrow-bone, hare, chicken, bacon, herring, ling, and calves'-foot to oyster, chewet, Warden, pippin, Codlin, and minc'd. Markham's recipe for "A Herring Pye" will serve as well as any to illustrate the character of the amalgams that passed under the names of pies, puddings, and tarts:

"A Herring Pye:—Take white pickled Herrings of one night's watering, and boyl them a little, then take off the skin, and take only the backs of them, and pick the fish clean from the bones; then take good store of Raisins of the sun, and stone them; and put them to the Fish; then take a Warden or two, and pare it, and slice it in small slices from the core, and put it likewise to the fish; then with a very sharp shredding Knife shred all as small and fine as may be: then put to it good store of Currants, Sugar, Cinnamon, slic't Dates, and so put it into the coffin, with good store of sweet Butter, and so cover it, and leave onely a round vent-hole on the top of the lid, and so bake it like Pies of that nature. When it is sufficiently bak't, draw it out, and take Claret Wine, and a little Verjuyce, Sugar, Cinnamon, and sweet Butter, and boyl them together: then put it in at the vent-hole, and shake the Pye a little, and put it again into the Oven for a little space, and so serve it up, the lid being candied over with Sugar, and the sides of the dish trimmed with Sugar."

But many recipes are given in the cook-books, both in the old and the new, which the wise reader will avoid, and perchance Markham's herring-pie was among the number. It were pleasanter, at any rate, to take John Fletcher's prescription for some contemporaneous dishes, where, after he would have "the pig turn merrily, merrily, ah! and let the fat goose swim," he exclaims:

The wines and beverages of old corresponded to many of the dishes themselves; which of these was most productive of indigestion it were difficult to state. Hippocras, so generously indulged in, not to mention posset, mead, metheglin, and perry, must have been a potent factor in fomenting the uric-acid diathesis. When to these common beverages are added the fiery, heavy, sweet, and mixed wines that were in general use, it is scarcely surprising that the seeds of gout were sown broadcast, and that the indiscretions of the fathers were visited upon the children unto the existing generation. Even Milton did not escape, while Spenser, Sir William Temple, and a host of worthies who were supposed to be abstemious in their diet were victims to arthritic complaints. How Shakespeare eluded the malady seems a miracle, in view of the existing viands and beverages and the necessary lack of exercise attendant on his literary pursuits. Alexander Neckham, in his twelfth-century treatise, mentions clarÉ and nectar as proper to be found in the cellar or in the storehouse. ClarÉ was a mixture of clear red wine, the best of which came from Guyenne, with honey, sugar, and spices, as distinguished from piment or nectar, a similar compound, but with more substance, founded on the red wine of Burgundy, DauphinÉ, etc.

In ancient days the taste was for "strong, sharp, and full-flavoured" wines. Bordeaux, or "claret," as it is now made was unknown. Vitification and vinification were then undeveloped compared with the present time. In place of the existing delicate growths of the MÉdoc were the fiery wines of Guyenne and Gascony and the heavy products of Provence and Languedoc. It is to be supposed, likewise, that the Rhenish wines at that time were totally different from those of the Rheingau and the Bavarian Palatinate now. But the kinds mostly in vogue were sack and malmsey, muscadel and canary, and "bastard" or malaga, port as yet not having been introduced into England.

The punch-bowl or wassail-bowl, the goddard, caudle-cup and posset-pot, were all in use in England in olden days—punch, or "pauch," however, being a drink of Indian origin, the word meaning five, and so named from its five ingredients: arrack, tea, sugar, lemon-juice, and water. Grog is an English beverage of later introduction. Admiral Vernon, in 1745, having put an end to the use by the English navy of ale, substituted for it rum diluted with water. The admiral was dubbed by the sailors "Old Grog," because of an old cloak of grogram which he always wore in foul weather, and hence it came naturally about that the new potation of the high seas acquired its present name.

Mead, the favourite tipple of Queen Bess, was made by boiling honey and water together, with quantities of spices, herbs, and lemons; when it had stood for three months, the liquor was bottled and was ready to drink six weeks afterwards. Butler, in "The Feminine Monarchy, or History of Bees," draws a distinction between mead and metheglin, making hydromel the generic term. In the old cookery books and "Housewives" we find directions how to make strong Mead and small White Mead. Artificial Frontignac wine was made by boiling water, sugar, and raisins together, adding elder-flowers, syrup of lemons, and ale yeast. "English Champagne" was composed of water, sugar, and currants boiled, with the addition of balm; and, when bottled, a small lump of double-refined sugar was used to impart effervescence. In a somewhat similar manner numerous other forms of wine were compounded, as Saragossa or English Sack, Quince, Mountain, Plum, Birch, and Sage. Perhaps the most bizarre of all ancient concoctions is one termed "Cock Ale," for which this recipe is presented in E. Smith's "Compleat Housewife" (1736):

"To make Cock Ale:—Take ten gallons of ale, and a large cock, the older the better, parboil the cock, flea him, and stamp him in a stone mortar till his bones are broken, (you must craw and gut him when you flea him), put the cock into two quarts of sack, and put to it three pounds of raisins of the sun stoned, some blades of mace, and a few cloves; put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale has done working, put the ale and bag together into a vessel; in a week or nine days' time bottle it up, fill the bottles but just above the necks, and leave the same time to ripen as other ale."

A notable advance in the art was accomplished during the latter part of the reign of Charles II, who was somewhat of a cook as well as an epicure. The sirloin of beef is said to owe its name to this monarch, who, dining upon a loin of beef with which he was particularly pleased, inquired the name of the joint, saying its merit was so great that it deserved to be knighted, and that thenceforth it should be called Sir-Loin. The Parisian school soon became fashionable, and numerous works on cookery made their appearance. But, like the fifteenth Louis when intent upon his pleasures at the Parc aux Cerfs, the second Charles, amid his dissolute court and its frail beauties whom Sir Peter Lely has drawn for us, had other matters to engage his serious attention than presiding at the range or posing as a patron of culinary authors. Pies, tarts, and pasties now met with increased favour, and "The Accomplisht Cook, or The Art and Mystery of Cookery" of Robert May, the first edition of which appeared in 1665, became the oracle of feasting and dining. "God and his own conscience," the author states, would not permit him "to bury his experiences with his silver hairs in the grave."

From Pepys' "Diary" one may obtain much information regarding the mode of living at the time. That the English appetite had suffered no decline is apparent from nearly any one of his entries relating to the subject. John and Joan may have continued to live "meanely," but such can scarcely be said of the better classes. Thus, under date of January 26, 1659, Pepys speaks of coming home from his office to my lord's lodgings, where his wife had "got ready a very fine dinner, viz.: a dish of marrow-bones, a leg of mutton, a loin of veal, a dish of fowl, three pullets, and a dozen of larks all in a dish; a great tart, a neat's-tongue, a dish of anchovies, a dish of prawns, and cheese." On March 26, 1660, having guests to dine with him, he says: "I had a pretty dinner for them, viz.: a brace of stewed carps, six roasted chickens, and a jowle of salmon hot for the first course: a tansy, a kind of sweet dish made of eggs, cream, etc., flavoured with the juice of tansy; and two neat's-tongues and cheese, the second. We had a man cook to dress dinner to-day. Merry all the afternoon, talking, singing, and piping on the flageolet."

On another occasion, April 4, 1662, he states that he "was very merry before and after dinner, and the more for that my dinner was great, and most neatly dressed by our own only mayde. We had a fricassee of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, three carps in a dish, a great dish of a side of lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, a dish of four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey-pie, a most rare pie, a dish of anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all things mighty noble, and to my great content." Another of his dinners consisted of "a ham of French bacon boiled with pigeons, and a roasted swan, both excellent dishes." Dining at Sir William Penn's on his wedding anniversary, he mentions, besides a good chine of beef and other good cheer, eighteen mince-pies in a dish—the number of years his host had been married. Again, he speaks of drinking great quantities of claret, and of eating botargo, a sausage made of eggs and the blood of a sea-mullet, with bread and butter; as also of dining on a haunch of venison "powdered and boiled, and a powdered leg of pork; also a fine salmon-pie."

It will be noted how meat, game, and fish-pies prevail, with tarts, marrow-bones, and neat's-tongues as secondary dishes. The roast swan, if a cygnet, may have been rather appetising, but one would feel more secure to leave the lamprey-pie untasted, and allow the "botargo" to be passed on to a neighbour. The salmon-pie, likewise, has an indigestible sound, especially as there are no signs of any Chablis or hock to serve as an antidote. Of course, the virtues of the carp would depend entirely on the sauce, and carp sauces of those days must have been anything but assuring. The "Diary" of Mr. Pepys says nothing of the mornings after his dinners—the true test of a generous repast. It is just as well, therefore, for the reader who has the welfare of his stomach to consider, not to dream of having dined with Pepys or his friends, or to attempt to vie with him in "claret" and "good cheer."

Far more simple, though by no means meagre, was the diet of the rural population. In place of lobsters and fricassees with sack and muscadel, bread, the roast of beef, mutton, and veal, and sound home-brewed ale went to the making of strength and endurance. In the country, the hay-harvest, sheep-shearing, and the wheat-harvest were always occasions for special festivity, where master and men jointly celebrated the fruits of their toil in the fields. Of all such celebrations the Hock-Cart or Harvest-Home, when the last sheaf of wheat had been garnered, was the most prolific of feasting and merrymaking—a festival which is well described by Herrick, with its attendant bill of fare:

The era of Queen Anne, a noted gourmande, who achieved the feminine distinction of acquiring the gout, was marked by the appearance of a work on "Royal Cookery, or the Complete Court Book" (1710), by Patrick Lamb, Esq., chef to her Majesty, who had previously served Charles II, James II, and William and Mary. Pope's description in the "Dunciad" would indicate that cookery was in a flourishing state under the last of the Stuarts:

In 1730 appeared "The Compleat Practical Cook, or A new System of the whole Art and Mystery of Cooking," a work with sixty curious copperplates of courses, written by Charles Carter, cook to the Duke of Argyll, the Earl of Pontefract, and Lord Cornwallis. In the preface to his "City and Country Cook" the author says: "What I have published is almost the only book, one or two excepted, which of late years has come into the world, that has been the result of the author's own practice and experience; for though very few eminent practical Cooks have ever cared to publish what they knew of the art, yet they have been prevailed on, for a small premium from a Bookseller, to lend their names to performances in this art, unworthy their owning."

The titles of many of the early cook-books are not wanting in quaintness or directness, as the case may be, however devoid of practical worth their contents. Thus we find the following among a host of other English works relating to the subject:

• The Good Husive's Handmaid, 1550.
• The Householder's Philosophie, 1588.
• The Good Housewife's Closet of Provision, 1589.
• Butte's Dyets Dry Dinner, 1599.
• Dawson's Good Huswife's Jewel and rare Conceits in Cookry, 1610.
• The Book of Carving and Serving, 1613.
• A Closet of Delights for Ladies, 1630.
• A Closet for Ladies and Gentlewomen, 1630.
• Murrell's Cookerie and Manner of making Kickshawes, etc., 1630.
• The Philosopher's Banquet, 1633.
• The Schoolmaster, or Teacher of Table Philosophy, 1652.
• The Ladies' Companion, 1653.
• The Treasury of Commodious Conceits and Hidden Secrets, 1653.
• The Ladies' Cabinet Opened, 1655.
• Nature unembowelled, or 1720 Receipts, 1655.
• The True Gentlewoman's Delight, 1671.
• The Gentlewoman's Cabinet Unlocked, 1675.
• The Queen-Like Closet, or Rich Cabinet, 1675.
• The School of Grace, or A Book of Nurture, 1680.
• Rose's School for the Officers of the Mouth, 1682.
• The Queen's Closet Opened, 1683.
• Hannah Wooley's Rare Receipts, 1684.
• The Accomplisht Ladies' Delight, 1686.
• The Kitchen Physician, 1688.
• The Cupboard Door Opened, 1689.
• The Queen's Cookery, 1709.
• Incomperable Secrets in Cookery, 1710.
• Cookery and Pastry Cards, 1720.
• The Young Lady's Companion, 1734.
• E. Smith's Compleat Housewife, 1736.
• The Family Piece, 1741.
• Adam's Luxury and Eve's Cookery, 1744.
• Sarah Jackson's Cook Director, 1755.
• The Cook's Cookery, and Comments on Mrs. Glasse, 1758.
• Mary Smith's Compleat Housekeeper, 1772.
• Sarah Harrison's Housekeeper's Pocket-Book, 1777.
• Mrs. Fisher's Prudent Housewife, 1788.
• Dr. Stark's Dietetical Experiments, 1788.
• Mrs. Carter's Frugal Housewife, 1810.
• Mrs. Powel's Art of Cookery, 1811.
• Mrs. Price's New Book of Cookery, 1813.
• The School of Good Living, 1814.
• Young's Epicure, 1815.
• Haslehurst's Family Friend, 1816.
• Chamber's Ladies' Best Companion, 1820.

Here are manuals enough, in all conscience, to have produced a progressive cuisine, were not the majority a repetition of the crudities and barbarisms of their antecedents, where one heresy was passed on to be augmented by another author, and by him transmitted to his successors. Essentially differing from France, England was unblessed with originality, and not until the influence of the splendid restaurants of the Parisian capital had extended across the Channel did the Briton awaken from his lethargy and cease to see through Mrs. Glasse and Mrs. Smith darkly. Then Ude and Kitchener, Francatelli, Walker, and Soyer appeared, to pave the way for a better condition of cookery in the kingdom.

That the works referred to, where one has the facilities of consulting them and the patience to peruse them, are not entirely lacking in wit will be obvious if only from the repetition—in her "Compleat Housewife," by Mrs. Smith, who professes "to serve the publick in what she may"—of Ray's proverb, "God sends meat and the devil sends cooks," as well as from her namesake's rendition in the "Compleat Housekeeper" of sauce Robert as "Roe-Boat sauce," omelette as "Hamlet," and soupe À la reine as "Soup a la Rain." Neither should a really witty quatrain from "The Philosopher's Banquet," whose aroma almost suggests the spikenards, musks, and galbanums of the "Hesperides," be allowed to pass unnoticed:

It has been said of garlic that every one knows its odour save he who has eaten it, and who wonders why every one flies at his approach. But the onion tribe is prophylactic and highly invigorating, and even more necessary to cookery than parsley itself. What were a salad without the onion, whey-cheese without chives, a bouillabaisse, or a brandade of cod without garlic, certain soups and ragoÛts without leeks, and a bordelaise sauce without shallots! And if every one eat them, how shall they offend? "All Italy is in the fine, penetrating smell; and all Provence; and all Spain. An onion-or garlic-scented atmosphere hovers alike over the narrow calli of Venice, the cool courts of Cordova, and the thronged amphitheatre of Arles. It is only the atmosphere breathed by the Latin peoples of the South, so that ever must it suggest blue skies and endless sunshine, cypress groves, and olive orchards. For the traveller it is interwoven with memories of the golden canvases of Titian, the song of Dante, the music of Mascagni."[17] In like manner, the wild leek that strews the woodland carpet with its cool, fresh greens and pale, nodding flowers is associated with one's first spring rambles, while yet the snowbanks linger amid the sheltered hollows and the summons of the first flicker resounds through the awakening groves. Decidedly, life were devoid of a great portion of its fragrance if deprived of the resources of the Allium. It is the salt of flavourings, and its rich pungency belongs to it alone.

Most famous among culinary treatises of the eighteenth century is that of Mrs. Glasse, first printed in 1747, and republished as late as 1803.[18] For a long period this was the vade mecum of the kitchen, and was fondled as fervently by housewives as was ever Addison by the literarian, or Herbert by the pietist. From the original thin folio it gradually broadened through numerous editions into a thick octavo. The authorship of the work is in doubt, it having been variously attributed to Dr. Hill and Dr. Hunter, London physicians, and Mrs. Hannah Glasse of Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, habit-maker to the royal family. Careful perusal, nevertheless, would indicate a feminine instead of a masculine hand. The first edition of 1747 is said to be almost as rare as the first folio of Shakespeare, being quoted, "in the original sheep binding with rough leaves in a red morocco case," as high as £31 10s. in a recent catalogue of a London bookseller.

It is stated in the preface that the work has not been written in the "high-polite style," and that the ends the manual was intended for were to "improve the servants and save the ladies a great deal of trouble." The book owes its reputation, no doubt, more to the remark erroneously credited to the author—"First catch your hare"—than to any other cause. Certainly its recipes have little to recommend it. Mace, cloves, nutmeg, and similar spices—ingredients that require the nicest discrimination in their employment—are still prescribed in cyclopean quantities, and under her rÉgime cookery continued to remain much in the condition described by Goldsmith:

Many of the old dishes, with others slightly modified, find place in her pages, together with new dishes of singular titles: as, for instance, "Bombarded Veal," "How to fricassee Skirrets," "to prepare an Oxford John," "to make a Cheese-Curd Florendine," "to stew Beef Gobbets," "to make a Pellaw the Indian way," "to make a Frangas Incopades," "to French a Hind-Saddle of Mutton," "to make a Hedge-Hog," and "an Hottentot Pie," "to make an excellent Sack-Posset," etc. But the recipes will speak best for themselves, like the following for making "A Good Brown Gravy":

"Take a half a pint of small beer, or ale that is not bitter, and half a pint of water, an onion cut small, a little bit of lemon-peel cut small, three cloves, a blade of mace, some whole pepper, a spoonful of walnut pickle, a spoonful of catchup, and an anchovy; first put a piece of butter into a saucepan, as big as a hen's egg, when it is melted shake in a little flour, and let it be a little brown; then by degrees stir in the above ingredients, and let it boil a quarter of an hour, then strain it, and it is fit for fish or roots."

The directions for "A Liver-Pudding boiled" call for additional skill and thorough familiarity with the art of the charcutier:

"Get the liver of the sheep, when you kill one, and cut it as thin as you can, and chop it; mix it with as much suet shred fine, half as many crumbs of bread or biscuit grated, season it with some sweet herbs shred fine, a little nutmeg grated, a little beaten pepper, and an anchovy shred fine; mix all together with a little salt, or the anchovy liquor, with a piece of butter, fill the crust and close it; boil three hours."

In Mrs. Smith's "Compleat Housewife" (1736) we find these instructions, entitled "To Collar A Pig":

"Cut off the head of your pig; then cut the body asunder; bone it, and cut two collars off each side...."

In Mrs. Glasse's injunctions for roasting a pig, the author is yet more colourful:

"Stick your pig just above the breast-bone, and run your knife to the heart...."

It will be immediately evident that injustice has been done to this noble and worthy companion of man—that of confounding him with the hare, whose only practical use is in a civet or a pie, and in furnishing amusement in coursing. For neither in "The Art of Cookery" nor in her "Compleat Confectioner" does Mrs. Glasse utter the axiom, "First catch your hare," but, as we have seen, "First stick your pig"! It was Beauvilliers who said, in presenting his recipe for hare-pie: "Ayez un liÈvre."

Among the dishes presented in "The Art of Cookery" which will be appreciated by the feminine reader is one termed "A Bride's Pie," which no doubt was considered fully worthy the appellation of an old culinary writer—"a darling dainty":

"Boil two calves' feet, pick the meat from the bones, and chop it very fine, shred small one pound of beef suet, and a pound of apples, wash and pick one pound of currants very small, dry them before the fire, stone and chop a quarter of a pound of jar raisins, a quarter of an ounce of cinnamon, the same of mace and nutmeg, two ounces of candied citron, two ounces of candied lemon cut thin, a glass of brandy and one of Champagne, put them in a china dish with a rich puff paste over it, roll another lid and cut it in leaves, flowers, figures, and put a glass ring in it."

It may have been some of Mrs. Glasse's compounds that prompted Johnson's remark, "Women can spin very well, but they cannot make a good book of cookery." Many other works during the eighteenth century succeeded "The Art of Cookery," though none achieved its marked popularity. Sufficient has been said of ancient English manuals, however, to present some idea of their quality and enable the reader to judge of the culinary science as it was understood by former generations. Far more slow to develop than in France, English cookery has still much to attain among both the middle and well-to-do classes, and even in the case of most of the restaurants and hotels; the era has not yet dawned in Great Britain when, on arising from the dinner-table, one may truly exclaim: