The following receipts are not a mere marrowless collection of shreds and patches, and cuttings and pastings, but a bon fide register of practical facts,—accumulated by a perseverance not to be subdued or evaporated by the igniferous terrors of a roasting fire in the dog-days,—in defiance of the odoriferous and calefacient repellents of roasting, boiling, frying, and broiling;—moreover, the author has submitted to a labour no preceding cookery-book-maker, perhaps, ever attempted to encounter,—having eaten each receipt before he set it down in his book.

They have all been heartily welcomed by a sufficiently well-educated palate, and a rather fastidious stomach:—perhaps this certificate of the reception of the respective preparations, will partly apologize for the book containing a smaller number of them than preceding writers on this gratifying subject have transcribed—for the amusement of “every man’s master,” the STOMACH.15-*

Numerous as are the receipts in former books, they vary little from each other, except in the name given to them; the processes of cookery are very few: I have endeavoured to describe each, in so plain and circumstantial a manner, as I hope will be easily understood, even by the amateur, who is unacquainted with the practical part of culinary concerns.

Old housekeepers may think I have been tediously minute on many points which may appear trifling: my predecessors seem to have considered the RUDIMENTS of COOKERY quite unworthy of attention. These little delicate distinctions constitute all the difference between a common and an elegant table, and are not trifles to the YOUNG HOUSEKEEPERS who must learn them either from the communication of others or blunder on till their own slowly accumulating and dear-bought experience teaches them.A wish to save time, trouble and money to inexperienced housekeepers and cooks, and to bring the enjoyments and indulgences of the opulent within reach of the middle ranks of society, were my motives for publishing this book. I could accomplish it only by supposing the reader (when he first opens it) to be as ignorant of cookery as I was, when I first thought of writing on the subject.

I have done my best to contribute to the comfort of my fellow-creatures: by a careful attention to the directions herein given, the most ignorant may easily learn to prepare food, not only in an agreeable and wholesome, but in an elegant and economical manner.

This task seems to have been left for me; and I have endeavoured to collect and communicate, in the clearest and most intelligible manner, the whole of the heretofore abstruse mysteries of the culinary art, which are herein, I hope, so plainly developed, that the most inexperienced student in the occult art of cookery, may work from my receipts with the utmost facility.

I was perfectly aware of the extreme difficulty of teaching those who are entirely unacquainted with the subject, and of explaining my ideas effectually, by mere receipts, to those who never shook hands with a stewpan.

In my anxiety to be readily understood, I have been under the necessity of occasionally repeating the same directions in different parts of the book; but I would rather be censured for repetition than for obscurity, and hope not to be accused of affectation, while my intention is perspicuity.

Our neighbours of France are so justly famous for their skill in the affairs of the kitchen, that the adage says, “As many Frenchmen as many cooks:” surrounded as they are by a profusion of the most delicious wines, and seducing liqueurs offering every temptation to render drunkenness delightful, yet a tippling Frenchman is a “rara avis.”

They know how so easily to keep life in sufficient repair by good eating, that they require little or no screwing up with liquid stimuli. This accounts for that “toujours gai,” and happy equilibrium of the animal spirits which they enjoy with more regularity than any people: their elastic stomachs, unimpaired by spirituous liquors, digest vigorously the food they sagaciously prepare and render easily assimilable, by cooking it sufficiently,—wisely contriving to get half the work of the stomach done by fire and water, till

“The tender morsels on the palate melt,
And all the force of cookery is felt.”

See Nos. 5 and 238, &c.

The cardinal virtues of cookery, “CLEANLINESS, FRUGALITY, NOURISHMENT, AND PALATABLENESS,” preside over each preparation; for I have not presumed to insert a single composition, without previously obtaining the “imprimatur” of an enlightened and indefatigable “COMMITTEE OF TASTE,” (composed of thorough-bred GRANDS GOURMANDS of the first magnitude,) whose cordial co-operation I cannot too highly praise; and here do I most gratefully record the unremitting zeal they manifested during their arduous progress of proving the respective recipes: they were so truly philosophically and disinterestedly regardless of the wear and tear of teeth and stomach, that their labour appeared a pleasure to them. Their laudable perseverance has enabled me to give the inexperienced amateur an unerring guide how to excite as much pleasure as possible on the palate, and occasion as little trouble as possible to the principal viscera, and has hardly been exceeded by those determined spirits who lately in the Polar expedition braved the other extreme of temperature, &c. in spite of whales, bears, icebergs, and starvation.

Every attention has been paid in directing the proportions of the following compositions; not merely to make them inviting to the appetite, but agreeable and useful to the stomach—nourishing without being inflammatory, and savoury without being surfeiting.

I have written for those who make nourishment the chief end of eating,17-* and do not desire to provoke appetite beyond the powers and necessities of nature; proceeding, however, on the purest epicurean principles of indulging the palate as far as it can be done without injury or offence to the stomach, and forbidding18-* nothing but what is absolutely unfriendly to health.

——“That which is not good, is not delicious
To a well-govern’d and wise appetite.”—Milton.

This is by no means so difficult a task as some gloomy philosophers (uninitiated in culinary science) have tried to make the world believe; who seem to have delighted in persuading you, that every thing that is nice must be noxious, and that every thing that is nasty is wholesome.

“How charming is divine philosophy?
Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo’s lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectar’d sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.”—Milton.

Worthy William Shakspeare declared he never found a philosopher who could endure the toothache patiently:—the Editor protests that he has not yet overtaken one who did not love a feast.

Those cynical slaves who are so silly as to suppose it unbecoming a wise man to indulge in the common comforts of life, should be answered in the words of the French philosopher. “Hey—what, do you philosophers eat dainties?” said a gay Marquess. “Do you think,” replied Descartes, “that God made good things only for fools?”

Every individual, who is not perfectly imbecile and void of understanding, is an epicure in his own way. The epicures in boiling of potatoes are innumerable. The perfection of all enjoyment depends on the perfection of the faculties of the mind and body; therefore, the temperate man is the greatest epicure, and the only true voluptuary.

The pleasures of the table have been highly appreciated and carefully cultivated in all countries and in all ages;19-* and in spite of all the stoics, every one will allow they are the first and the last we enjoy, and those we taste the oftenest,—above a thousand times in a year, every year of our lives!

The stomach is the mainspring of our system. If it be not sufficiently wound up to warm the heart and support the circulation, the whole business of life will, in proportion, be ineffectively performed: we can neither think with precision, walk with vigour, sit down with comfort, nor sleep with tranquillity.

There would be no difficulty in proving that it influences (much more than people in general imagine) all our actions: the destiny of nations has often depended upon the more or less laborious digestion of a prime minister.19-† See a very curious anecdote in the memoirs of Count Zinzendorff in Dodsley’s Annual Register for 1762. 3d edition, p. 32.

The philosopher Pythagoras seems to have been extremely nice in eating; among his absolute injunctions to his disciples, he commands them to “abstain from beans.”

This ancient sage has been imitated by the learned who have discoursed on this subject since, who are liberal of their negative, and niggardly of their positive precepts—in the ratio, that it is easier to tell you not to do this, than to teach you how to do that.

Our great English moralist Dr. S. Johnson, his biographer Boswell tells us, “was a man of very nice discernment in the science of cookery,” and talked of good eating with uncommon satisfaction. “Some people,” said he, “have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat; for my part, I mind my belly very studiously and very carefully, and I look upon it that he who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind any thing else.”The Dr. might have said, cannot mind any thing else. The energy of our BRAINS is sadly dependent on the behaviour of our BOWELS.20-* Those who say, ’Tis no matter what we eat or what we drink, may as well say, ’Tis no matter whether we eat, or whether we drink.

The following anecdotes I copy from Boswell’s life of Johnson.

Johnson.—“I could write a better book of cookery than has ever yet been written; it should be a book on philosophical principles. I would tell what is the best butcher’s meat, the proper seasons of different vegetables, and then, how to roast, and boil, and to compound.”

Dilly.—“Mrs. Glasse’s cookery, which is the best, was written by Dr. Hill.”

Johnson.—“Well, Sir—this shows how much better the subject of cookery20-† may be treated by a philosopher;20-‡ but you shall see what a book of cookery I shall make, and shall agree with Mr. Dilly for the copyright.”

Miss Seward.—“That would be Hercules with the distaff indeed!”

Johnson.—“No, madam; women can spin very well, but they cannot make a good book of cookery.” See vol. iii. p. 311.

Mr. B. adds, “I never knew a man who relished good eating more than he did: when at table, he was totally absorbed in the business of the moment: nor would he, unless in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, until he had satisfied his appetite.”

The peculiarities of his constitution were as great as those of his character: luxury and intemperance are relative terms, depending on other circumstances than mere quantity and quality. Nature gave him an excellent palate, and a craving appetite, and his intense application rendered large supplies of nourishment absolutely necessary to recruit his exhausted spirits.

The fact is, this great man had found out that animal and intellectual vigour,21-* are much more entirely dependent upon each other than is commonly understood; especially in those constitutions whose digestive and chylopoietic organs are capricious and easily put out of tune, or absorb the “pabulum vitÆ” indolently and imperfectly: with such, it is only now and then that the “sensorium commune” vibrates with the full tone of accurately considerative, or creative energy. “His favourite dainties were, a leg of pork boiled till it dropped from the bone, a veal-pie, with plums and sugar, or the outside cut of a salt buttock of beef. With regard to drink, his liking was for the strongest, as it was not the flavour, but the effect that he desired.” Mr. Smale’s Account of Dr. Johnson’s Journey into Wales, 1816, p. 174.

Thus does the HEALTH always, and very often the LIFE of invalids, and those who have weak and infirm STOMACHS, depend upon the care and skill of the COOK. Our forefathers were so sensible of this, that in days of yore no man of consequence thought of making a day’s journey without taking his “Magister Coquorum” with him.The rarity of this talent in a high degree is so well understood, that besides very considerable pecuniary compensation, his majesty’s first and second cooks22-* are now esquires by their office. We have every reason to suppose they were persons of equal dignity heretofore.

In Dr. Pegge’s “Forme of Cury,” 8vo. London, 1780, we read, that when Cardinal Otto, the Pope’s legate, was at Oxford, A. D. 1248, his brother officiated as “Magister CoquinÆ.”

This important post has always been held as a situation of high trust and confidence; and the “Magnus Coquus,” AnglicÈ, the Master Kitchener, has, time immemorial, been an officer of considerable dignity in the palaces of princes.

The cook in Plautus (pseudol) is called “Hominum servatorem,” the preserver of mankind; and by Mercier “un mÉdecin qui guÉrit radicalement deux maladies mortelles, la faim et la soif.”

The Norman conqueror William bestowed several portions of land on these highly-favoured domestics, the “Coquorum PrÆpositus,” and “Coquus Regius;” a manor was bestowed on Robert Argyllon the “Grand Queux,” to be held by the following service. See that venerable record, the doomsday book.

“Robert Argyllon holdeth one carucate of land in Addington in the county of Surrey, by the service of making one mess in an earthen pot in the kitchen of our Lord the King, on the day of his coronation, called De la Groute,” i. e. a kind of plum-porridge, or water-gruel with plums in it. This dish is still served up at the royal table at coronations, by the Lord of the said manor of Addington.

At the coronation of King George IV., Court of Claims, July 12, 1820:

“The petition of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which was presented by Sir G. Nayler, claiming to perform the service of presenting a dish of De la Groute to the King at the banquet, was considered by the Court, and decided to be allowed.”

A good dinner is one of the greatest enjoyments of human life; and as the practice of cookery is attended with so many discouraging difficulties,22-† so many disgusting and disagreeable circumstances, and even dangers, we ought to have some regard for those who encounter them to procure us pleasure, and to reward their attention by rendering their situation every way as comfortable and agreeable as we can. He who preaches integrity to those in the kitchen, (see “Advice to Cooks,”) may be permitted to recommend liberality to those in the parlour; they are indeed the sources of each other. Depend upon it, “True self-love and social are the same;” “Do as you would be done by:” give those you are obliged to trust every inducement to be honest, and no temptation to play tricks.

When you consider that a good servant eats23-* no more than a bad one, how much waste is occasioned by provisions being dressed in a slovenly and unskilful manner, and how much a good cook (to whom the conduct of the kitchen is confided) can save you by careful management, no housekeeper will hardly deem it an unwise speculation (it is certainly an amiable experiment), to invite the honesty and industry of domestics, by setting them an example of liberality—at least, show them, that “According to their pains will be their gains.”

Avoid all approaches towards familiarity; which, to a proverb, is accompanied by contempt, and soon breaks the neck of obedience.

A lady gave us the following account of the progress of a favourite.

“The first year, she was an excellent servant; the second, a kind mistress; the third, an intolerable tyrant; at whose dismissal, every creature about my house rejoiced heartily.”

However, servants are more likely to be praised into good conduct, than scolded out of bad. Always commend them when they do right. To cherish the desire of pleasing in them, you must show them that you are pleased:—

“Be to their faults a little blind,
And to their virtues very kind.”

By such conduct, ordinary servants may be converted into good ones: few are so hardened, as not to feel gratified when they are kindly and liberally treated.

It is a good maxim to select servants not younger than THIRTY:—before that age, however comfortable you may endeavour to make them, their want of experience, and the hope of something still better, prevents their being satisfied with their present state; after, they have had the benefit of experience: if they are tolerably comfortable, they will endeavour to deserve the smiles of even a moderately kind master, for fear they may change for the worse.

Life may indeed be very fairly divided into the seasons of HOPE and FEAR. In YOUTH, we hope every thing may be right: in AGE, we fear every thing will be wrong.

Do not discharge a good servant for a slight offence:—

“Bear and forbear, thus preached the stoic sages,
And in two words, include the sense of pages.”—Pope.

Human nature is the same in all stations: if you can convince your servants that you have a generous and considerate regard for their health and comfort, why should you imagine that they will be insensible to the good they receive?

Impose no commands but what are reasonable, nor reprove but with justice and temper: the best way to ensure which is, never to lecture them till at least one day after they have offended you.

If they have any particular hardship to endure in your service, let them see that you are concerned for the necessity of imposing it.

If they are sick, remember you are their patron as well as their master: remit their labour, and give them all the assistance of food, physic, and every comfort in your power. Tender assiduity about an invalid is half a cure; it is a balsam to the mind, which has a most powerful effect on the body, soothes the sharpest pains, and strengthens beyond the richest cordial.

Ye who think that to protect and encourage virtue is the best preventive from vice, reward your female servants liberally.

Charity should begin at home. Prevention is preferable to cure—but I have no objection to see your names ornamenting the lists of subscribers to foundling hospitals and female penitentiaries.25-* Gentle reader, for a definition of the word “charity,” let me refer you to the 13th Chapter of St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians.

“To say nothing of the deleterious vapours and pestilential exhalations of the charcoal, which soon undermine the health of the heartiest, the glare of a scorching fire, and the smoke so baneful to the eyes and the complexion, are continual and inevitable dangers: and a cook must live in the midst of them, as a soldier on the field of battle surrounded by bullets, and bombs, and Congreve’s rockets; with this only difference, that for the first, every day is a fighting day, that her warfare is almost always without glory, and most praiseworthy achievements pass not only without reward, but frequently without thanks: for the most consummate cook is, alas! seldom noticed by the master, or heard of by the guests; who, while they are eagerly devouring his turtle, and drinking his wine, care very little who dressed the one, or sent the other.”—Almanach des Gourmands.

This observation applies especially to the SECOND COOK, or first kitchen maid, in large families, who have by far the hardest place in the house, and are worse paid, and truly verify the old adage, “the more work, the less wages.” If there is any thing right, the cook has the praise—when there is any thing wrong, as surely the kitchen maid has the blame. Be it known, then, to honest John Bull, that this humble domestic is expected by the cook to take the entire management of all ROASTS, BOILS, FISH, and VEGETABLES; i. e. the principal part of an Englishman’s dinner.

The master, who wishes to enjoy the rare luxury of a table regularly well served in the best style, must treat his cook as his friend—watch over her health26-* with the tenderest care, and especially be sure her taste does not suffer from her stomach being deranged by bilious attacks.

Besides understanding the management of the spit, the stewpan, and the rolling-pin, a COMPLETE COOK must know how to go to market, write legibly, and keep accounts accurately.

In well-regulated private families the most convenient custom seems to be, that the cook keep a house-book, containing an account of the miscellaneous articles she purchases; and the butcher’s, baker’s, butterman’s, green-grocer’s, fishmonger’s, milkman’s, and washing bills are brought in every Monday; these it is the duty of the cook to examine, before she presents them to her employer every Tuesday morning to be discharged.The advantage of paying such bills weekly is incalculable: among others the constant check it affords against any excess beyond the sum allotted for defraying them, and the opportunity it gives of correcting increase of expense in one week by a prudent retrenchment in the next. “If you would live even with the world, calculate your expenses at half your income—if you would grow rich, at one-third.”

It is an excellent plan to have a table of rules for regulating the ordinary expenses of the family, in order to check any innovation or excess which otherwise might be introduced unawares, and derange the proposed distribution of the annual revenue.

To understand the economy of household affairs is not only essential to a woman’s proper and pleasant performance of the duties of a wife and a mother, but is indispensable to the comfort, respectability, and general welfare of all families, whatever be their circumstances.

The editor has employed some leisure hours in collecting practical hints for instructing inexperienced housekeepers in the useful

Art of providing comfortably for a family;

which is displayed so plainly and so particularly, that a young lady may learn the delectable arcana of domestic affairs, in as little time as is usually devoted to directing the position of her hands on a piano-forte, or of her feet in a quadrille—this will enable her to make the cage of matrimony as comfortable as the net of courtship was charming. For this purpose he has contrived a Housekeeper’s Leger, a plain and easy plan of keeping accurate accounts of the expenses of housekeeping, which, with only one hour’s attention in a week, will enable you to balance all such accounts with the utmost exactness; an acceptable acquisition to all who admit that order and economy are the basis of comfort and independence.

It is almost impossible for a cook in a large family, to attend to the business of the kitchen with any certainty of perfection, if employed in other household concerns. It is a service of such importance, and so difficult to perform even tolerably well, that it is sufficient to engross the entire attention of one person.

“If we take a review of the qualifications which are indispensable in that highly estimable domestic, a GOOD COOK, we shall find that very few deserve that name.”27-*

“The majority of those who set up for professors of this art are of mean ability, selfish, and pilfering every thing they can; others are indolent and insolent. Those who really understand their business (which are by far the smallest number), are too often either ridiculously saucy, or insatiably thirsty; in a word, a good subject of this class is a rara avis indeed!”

“God sends meat,”—who sends cooks?28-* the proverb has long saved us the trouble of guessing. Vide Almanach des Gourmands, p. 83.

Of what value then is not this book, which will render every person of common sense a good cook in as little time as it can be read through attentively!

If the masters and mistresses of families will sometimes condescend to make an amusement of this art, they will escape numberless disappointments, &c. which those who will not, must occasionally inevitably suffer, to the detriment of both their health and their fortune.

I did not presume to offer any observations of my own, till I had read all that I could find written on the subject, and submitted (with no small pains) to a patient and attentive consideration of every preceding work, relating to culinary concerns, that I could meet with.

These books vary very little from each other; except in the preface, they are

“Like in all else as one egg to another.”

“Ab uno, disce omnes,” cutting and pasting have been much oftener employed than the pen and ink: any one who has occasion to refer to two or three of them, will find the receipts almost always “verbatim et literatim;” equally unintelligible to those who are ignorant, and useless to those who are acquainted with the business of the kitchen.

I have perused not fewer than 250 of these volumes.

During the Herculean labour of my tedious progress through these books, few of which afford the germ of a single idea, I have often wished that the authors of them had been satisfied with giving us the results of their own practice and experience, instead of idly perpetuating the errors, prejudices, and plagiarisms of their predecessors; the strange, and unaccountable, and uselessly extravagant farragoes and heterogeneous compositions which fill their pages, are combinations no rational being would ever think of either dressing or eating; and without ascertaining the practicability of preparing the receipts, and their fitness for food when done, they should never have ventured to recommend them to others: the reader of them will often put the same quÆre, as Jeremy, in Congreve’s comedy of “Love for Love,” when Valentine observes, “There’s a page doubled down in Epictetus that is a feast for an emperor.—Jer. Was Epictetus a real cook, or did he only write receipts?”

Half of the modern cookery books are made up with pages cut out of obsolete works, such as the “Choice Manual of Secrets,” the “True Gentlewoman’s Delight,” &c. of as much use, in this age of refinement, as the following curious passage from “The Accomplished Lady’s Rich Closet of Rarities, or Ingenious Gentlewoman’s Delightful Companion,” 12mo. London, 1653, chapter 7, page 42; which I have inserted in a note,29-* to give the reader a notion of the barbarous manners of the 16th century, with the addition of the arts of the confectioner, the brewer, the baker, the distiller, the gardener, the clear-starcher, and the perfumer, and how to make pickles, puff paste, butter, blacking, &c. together with my Lady Bountiful’s sovereign remedy for an inward bruise, and other ever-failing nostrums,—Dr. Killemquick’s wonder-working essence, and fallible elixir, which cures all manner of incurable maladies directly minute, Mrs. Notable’s instructions how to make soft pomatum, that will soon make more hair grow upon thy head, “than Dobbin, thy thill-horse, hath upon his tail,” and many others equally invaluable!!!—the proper appellation for which would be “a dangerous budget of vulgar errors,” concluding with a bundle of extracts from “the Gardener’s Calendar,” and “the Publican’s Daily Companion.”

Thomas Carter, in the preface to his “City and Country Cook,” London, 1738, 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.”

Robert May, in the introduction to his “Accomplished Cook,” 1665, says, “To all honest and well-intending persons of my profession, and others, this book cannot but be acceptable, as it plainly and profitably discovers the mystery of the whole art; for which, though I may be envied by some, that only value their private interests above posterity and the public good; yet (he adds), God and my own conscience would not permit me to bury these, my experiences, with my silver hairs in the grave.”

Those high and mighty masters and mistresses of the alimentary art, who call themselves “profess” cooks, are said to be very jealous and mysterious beings; and that if, in a long life of laborious stove-work, they have found out a few useful secrets, they seldom impart to the public the fruits of their experience; but sooner than divulge their discoveries for the benefit and comfort of their fellow-creatures, these silly, selfish beings will rather run the risk of a reprimand from their employers, and will sooner spoil a good dinner, than suffer their fellow-servants to see how they dress it!!!

The silly selfishness of short-sighted mortals, is never more extremely absurd than in their unprofitable parsimony of what is of no use to them, but would be of actual value to others, who, in return, would willingly repay them tenfold. However, I hope I may be permitted to quote, in defence of these culinary professors, a couple of lines of a favourite old song:

“If you search the world round, each profession, you’ll find,
Hath some snug little secrets, which the Mystery30-* they call.”

My receipts are the results of experiments carefully made, and accurately and circumstantially related;

The TIME requisite for dressing being stated;

The QUANTITIES of the various articles contained in each composition being carefully set down in NUMBER, WEIGHT, and MEASURE.

The WEIGHTS are avoirdupois; the MEASURE, Lyne’s graduated glass, i. e. a wine-pint divided into sixteen ounces, and the ounce into eight drachms. By a wine-glass is to be understood two ounces liquid measure; by a large or table-spoonful, half an ounce; by a small or tea-spoonful, a drachm, or half a quarter of an ounce, i. e. nearly equal to two drachms avoirdupois.

At some glass warehouses, you may get measures divided into tea and table-spoons. No cook should be without one, who wishes to be regular in her business.

This precision has never before been attempted in cookery books, but I found it indispensable from the impossibility of guessing the quantities intended by such obscure expressions as have been usually employed for this purpose in former works:—For instance: a bit of this—a handful of that—a pinch of t’other—do ’em over with an egg—and a sprinkle of salt—a dust of flour—a shake of pepper—a squeeze of lemon,—or a dash of vinegar, &c. are the constant phrases. Season it to your palate, (meaning the cook’s,) is another form of speech: now, if she has any, (it is very unlikely that it is in unison with that of her employers,) by continually sipping piquante relishes, it becomes blunted and insensible, and loses the faculty of appreciating delicate flavours, so that every thing is done at random.

These culinary technicals are so very differently understood by the learned who write them, and the unlearned who read them, and their “rule of thumb” is so extremely indefinite, that if the same dish be dressed by different persons, it will generally be so different, that nobody would imagine they had worked from the same directions, which will assist a person who has not served a regular apprenticeship in the kitchen, no more than reading “Robinson Crusoe” would enable a sailor to steer safely from England to India.32-*

It is astonishing how cheap cookery books are held by practical cooks: when I applied to an experienced artist to recommend me some books that would give me a notion of the rudiments of cookery, he replied, with a smile, “You may read Don Quixote, or Peregrine Pickle, they are both very good books.”

Careless expressions in cookery are the more surprising, as the confectioner is regularly attentive, in the description of his preparations, to give the exact quantities, though his business, compared to cookery, is as unimportant as the ornamental is inferior to the useful.

The maker of blanc-mange, custards, &c. and the endless and useless collection of puerile playthings for the palate (of first and second childhood, for the vigour of manhood seeketh not to be sucking sugar, or sipping turtle), is scrupulously exact, even to a grain, in his ingredients; while cooks are unintelligibly indefinite, although they are intrusted with the administration of our FOOD, upon the proper quality and preparation of which, all our powers of body and mind depend; their energy being invariably in the ratio of the performance of the restorative process, i. e. the quantity, quality, and perfect digestion of what we eat and drink.

Unless the stomach be in good humour, every part of the machinery of life must vibrate with languor: can we then be too attentive to its adjustment?!!

The following specimen of the unaccountably whimsical harlequinade of foreign kitchens is from “La Chapelle” Nouveau Cuisinier, Paris, 1748.

“A turkey,” in the shape of “football,” or “a hedge-hog.” A “shoulder of mutton,” in the shape of a “bee-hive.”—“EntrÉe of pigeons,” in the form of a “spider,” or sun-fashion, or “in the form of a frog,” or, in “the form of the moon.”—Or, “to make a pig taste like a wild boar;” take a living pig, and let him swallow the following drink, viz. boil together in vinegar and water, some rosemary, thyme, sweet basil, bay leaves, and sage; when you have let him swallow this, immediately whip him to death, and roast him forthwith. How “to still a cocke for a weak bodie that is consumed,—take a red cocke that is not too olde, and beat him to death.”—See THE BOOKE OF COOKRYE, very necessary for all such as delight therein. Gathered by A. W., 1591, p. 12. How to ROAST a pound of BUTTER, curiously and well; and to farce (the culinary technical for to stuff) a boiled leg of lamb with red herrings and garlic; with many other receipts of as high a relish, and of as easy digestion as the devil’s venison, i. e. a roasted tiger stuffed with tenpenny nails, or the “Bonne Bouche,” the rareskin Rowskimowmowsky offered to Baron Munchausen, “a fricassee of pistols, with gunpowder and alcohol sauce.”—See the Adventures of Baron Munchausen, 12mo. 1792, p. 200; and the horrible but authentic account of Ardesoif, in Moubray’s Treatise on Poultry, 8vo. 1816, p. 18.

But the most extraordinary of all the culinary receipts that have been under my eye, is the following diabolically cruel directions of Mizald, “how to roast and eat a goose alive.” “Take a GOOSE or a DUCK, or some such lively creature, (but a goose is best of all for this purpose,) pull off all her feathers, only the head and neck must be spared: then make a fire round about her, not too close to her, that the smoke do not choke her, and that the fire may not burn her too soon; nor too far off, that she may not escape free: within the circle of the fire let there be set small cups and pots full of water, wherein salt and honey are mingled: and let there be set also chargers full of sodden apples, cut into small pieces in the dish. The goose must be all larded, and basted over with butter, to make her the more fit to be eaten, and may roast the better: put then fire about her, but do not make too much haste, when as you see her begin to roast; for by walking about, and flying here and there, being cooped in by the fire that stops her way out, the unwearied goose is kept in; she will fall to drink the water to quench her thirst and cool her heart, and all her body, and the apple-sauce will make her dung, and cleanse and empty her. And when she roasteth, and consumes inwardly, always wet her head and heart with a wet sponge; and when you see her giddy with running, and begin to stumble, her heart wants moisture, and she is roasted enough. Take her up, set her before your guests, and she will cry as you cut off any part from her, and will be almost eaten up before she be dead; it is mighty pleasant to behold!!”—See Wecker’s Secrets of Nature, in folio, London, 1660, p. 148. 309.33-*

“We suppose Mr. Mizald stole this receipt from the kitchen of his infernal majesty; probably it might have been one of the dishes the devil ordered when he invited Nero and Caligula to a feast.”—A. C., Jun.

This is also related in Baptista Porta’s Natural Magicke, fol. 1658, p. 321. This very curious (but not scarce) book contains, among other strange tricks and fancies of “the Olden Time,” directions, “how to ROAST and BOIL a fowl at the same time, so that one-half shall be ROASTED and the other BOILED;” and “if you have a lacke of cooks, how to persuade a goose to roast himselfe!!”—See a second act of the above tragedy in page 80 of the Gentleman’s Magazine for January, 1809.

Many articles were in vogue in the 14th century, which are now obsolete. We add the following specimens of the CULINARY AFFAIRS OF DAYS OF YORE.

Sauce for a goose, A.D. 1381.

“Take a faire panne, and set hit under the goose whill she rostes; and kepe clene the grese that droppes thereof, and put thereto a godele (good deal) of Wyn, and a litel vinegur, and verjus, and onyons mynced, or garlek; then take the gottes (gut) of the goose and slitte hom, and scrape hom clene in water and salt, and so wash hom, and hack hom small, then do all this togedur in a piffenet (pipkin), and do thereto raisinges of corance, and pouder of pepur and of ginger, and of canell and hole clowes and maces, and let hit boyle and serve hit forthe.”

“That unwieldy marine animal the PORPUS was dressed in a variety of modes, salted, roasted, stewed, &c. Our ancestors were not singular in their partiality to it; I find, from an ingenious friend of mine, that it is even now, A. D. 1790, sold in the markets of most towns in Portugal; the flesh of it is intolerably hard and rancid.”—Warner’s Antiq. Cul. 4to. p. 15.

“The SWAN33-† was also a dish of state, and in high fashion when the elegance of the feast was estimated by the magnitude of the articles of which it was composed; the number consumed at the Earl of Northumberland’s table, A. D. 1512, amounted to twenty.”—Northumberland Household-book, p. 108.

“The CRANE was a darling dainty in William the Conqueror’s time, and so partial was that monarch to it, that when his prime favourite, William Fitz-Osborne, the steward of the household, served him with a crane scarcely half roasted, the king was so highly exasperated, that he lifted up his fist, and would have strucken him, had not Eudo (appointed Dapifer immediately after) warded off the blow.”—Warner’s Antiq. Cul. p. 12.

Seals, curlews, herons, bitterns, and the PEACOCK, that noble bird, “the food of lovers and the meat of lords,” were also at this time in high fashion, when the baronial entertainments were characterized by a grandeur and pompous ceremonial, approaching nearly to the magnificence of royalty; there was scarcely any royal or noble feast without PECOKKES, which were stuffed with spices and sweet herbs, roasted and served up whole, and covered after dressing with the skin and feathers; the beak and comb gilt, and the tail spread, and some, instead of the feathers, covered it with leaf gold; it was a common dish on grand occasions, and continued to adorn the English table till the beginning of the seventeenth century.

In Massinger’s play of “The City Madam,” Holdfast, exclaiming against city luxury, says, “three fat wethers bruised, to make sauce for a single peacock.”

This bird is one of those luxuries which were often sought, because they were seldom found: its scarcity and external appearance are its only recommendation; the meat of it is tough and tasteless.

Another favourite dish at the tables of our forefathers, was a PIE of stupendous magnitude, out of which, on its being opened, a flock of living birds flew forth, to the no small surprise and amusement of the guests.

“Four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie;
When the pie was open’d, the birds began to sing—
Oh! what a dainty dish—’t is fit for any king.”

This was a common joke at an old English feast. These animated pies were often introduced “to set on,” as Hamlet says, “a quantity of barren spectators to laugh;” there is an instance of a dwarf undergoing such an incrustation. About the year 1630, king Charles and his queen were entertained by the duke and dutchess of Buckingham, at Burleigh on the Hill, on which occasion Jeffery Hudson, the dwarf, was served up in a cold pie.—See Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting, vol. ii. p. 14.

The BARON OF BEEF was another favourite and substantial support of old English hospitality.

Among the most polished nations of the 15th and 16th centuries, the powdered (salted) horse, seems to have been a dish in some esteem: Grimalkin herself could not escape the undistinguishing fury of the cook. Don Anthony of Guevera, the chronicler to Charles V., gives the following account of a feast at which he was present. “I will tell you no lye, I sawe such kindes of meates eaten, as are wont to be sene, but not eaten—as a HORSE roasted—a CAT in gely—LYZARDS in hot brothe, FROGGES fried,” &c.

While we are thus considering the curious dishes of olden times, we will cursorily mention the singular diet of two or three nations of antiquity, noticed by Herodotus, lib. iv. “The Androphagi (the cannibals of the ancient world) greedily devoured the carcasses of their fellow-creatures; while the inoffensive Cabri (a Scythian tribe) found both food and drink in the agreeable nut of the Pontic tree. The Lotophagi lived entirely on the fruit of the Lotus tree. The savage Troglodyte esteemed a living serpent the most delicate of all morsels; while the capricious palate of the Zyguntini preferred the ape to every thing.”—Vide Warner’s Antiq. Cul. p. 135.

“The Romans, in the luxurious period of their empire, took five meals a day; a breakfast (jentaculum;) a dinner, which was a light meal without any formal preparation (prandium); a kind of tea, as we should call it, between dinner and supper (merenda); a supper (cÆna), which was their great meal, and commonly consisted of two courses; the first of meats, the second, what we call a dessert; and a posset, or something delicious after supper (commissatio).”—Adam’s Rom. Antiq. 2d edition, 8vo. 1792, p. 434 and 447.

“The Romans usually began their entertainments with eggs, and ended with fruits; hence, Ab ovo usque ad mala, from the beginning to the end of supper, Horat. Sat. i. 3. 6; Cic. Fam. ix. 20.

“The dishes (edulia) held in the highest estimation by the Romans, are enumerated, Gell. vii. 16, Macrob. Sat. ii. 9, Martial. v. 79, ix. 48, xi. 53, &c., a peacock (PAVO), Horat. Sat. ii. 2. 23, Juvenal. i. 143, first used by Hortensius, the orator, at a supper, which he gave when admitted into the college of priests, (aditiali cÆnd sacerdotii,) Plin. x. 20, s. 23; a pheasant, (PHASIANA, ex Phasi. Colchidis fluvio,) Martial. iii. 58, xiii. 72, Senec. ad Helv. 9, Petron. 79, Manil. v. 372; a bird called Attagen vel-ena, from Ionia or Phrygia, Horat. Epod. ii. 54, Martial. xiii. iii. 61, a guinea-hen, (avis Afra, Horat. ib. Gallina Numidica vel Africana, Juvenal, xi. 142, Martial, xiii. 73); a Melian crane; an Ambracian kid; nightingales, lusciniÆ; thrushes, turdi; ducks, geese, &c. Tomaculum, (? te??,) vel Isicium, (ab inseco;) sausages or puddings, Juvenal. x. 355. Martial. 42. 9, Petron. 31.”—Vide ibid. p. 447.

That the English reader may be enabled to form some idea of the heterogeneous messes with which the Roman palate was delighted, I introduce the following receipt from Apicius.

“Thick sauce for a boiled chicken.—Put the following ingredients into a mortar: aniseed, dried mint, and lazar-root (similar to assafoetida), cover them with vinegar; add dates; pour in liquamen, oil, and a small quantity of mustard seeds; reduce all to a proper thickness with port wine warmed; and then pour this same over your chicken, which should previously be boiled in anise-seed water.”

Liquamen and Garum were synonymous terms for the same thing; the former adopted in the room of the latter, about the age of Aurelian. It was a liquid, and thus prepared: the guts of large fish, and a variety of small fish, were put into a vessel and well salted, and exposed to the sun till they became putrid. A liquor was produced in a short time, which being strained off, was the liquamen.—Vide Lister in Apicium, p. 16, notes.

Essence of anchovy, as it is usually made for sale, when it has been opened about ten days, is not much unlike the Roman liquamen. See No. 433. Some suppose it was the same thing as the Russian Caviar, which is prepared from the roe of the sturgeon.

The BLACK BROTH of LacedÆmon will long continue to excite the wonder of the philosopher, and the disgust of the epicure. What the ingredients of this sable composition were, we cannot exactly ascertain. Jul. Pollux says, the LacedÆmonian black broth was blood, thickened in a certain way: Dr. Lister (in Apicium) supposes it to have been hog’s blood; if so, this celebrated Spartan dish bore no very distant resemblance to the black-puddings of our days. It could not be a very alluring mess, since a citizen of Sybaris having tasted it, declared it was no longer a matter of astonishment with him, why the Spartans were so fearless of death, since any one in his senses would much rather die, than exist on such execrable food.—Vide AthenÆum, lib. iv. c. 3. When Dionysius the tyrant had tasted the black broth, he exclaimed against it as miserable stuff; the cook replied—“It was no wonder, for the sauce was wanting.” “What sauce?” says Dionysius. The answer was,—“Labour and exercise, hunger and thirst, these are the sauces we LacedÆmonians use,” and they make the coarsest fare agreeable.—Cicero, 3 Tuscul.