Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine Part 3

A story is told here of Cromwell and his wife sitting down to a loin of veal, and his calling for an orange, which was the sauce he preferred to that joint, and her highness telling him that he could not have one, for they were not to be had under a groat.

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 pa.s.su_ with the advance in gardening and arboriculture under the auspices of Evelyn.

In 1683 we come to a little volume ent.i.tled "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 a.s.semblage 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 cuc.u.mbers, 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 const.i.tuency, 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 t.i.tles of "A Proper New Book of Cookery,"

or "The Book of Cookery." Notwithstanding the presence of many compet.i.tors, 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 G.o.d 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 Divertis.e.m.e.nts 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter; 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), c.o.c.ks'-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, sc.r.a.pe 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 princ.i.p.al 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 appet.i.te, 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 appet.i.te; which a healthful and vigorous const.i.tution, a clear, wholesome, odoriferous air, moderate exercise, and an exemption from anxious cares, always supplied them with.

"We read of no palled appet.i.tes, 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 pa.s.s 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 princ.i.p.al; 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 a.s.sert; 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 appet.i.te, 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 lat.i.tude 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 compa.s.s 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.