COOKERY BOOKS.

In 1747 appeared a thin folio volume, of which I will transcribe the title: "The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, which far Exceeds Every Thing of the Kind Ever yet Published ... By a Lady. London: Printed for the Author; and sold at Mrs. Ashburn's, a China Shop, the Corner of Fleet Ditch. MDCCXLVII." The lady was no other than Mrs. Glasse, wife of an attorney residing in Carey Street; and a very sensible lady she was, and a very sensible and interesting book hers is, with a preface showing that her aim was to put matters as plainly as she could, her intention being to instruct the lower sort. "For example," says she, "when I bid them lard a fowl, if I should bid them lard with large lardoons they would not know what I meant; but when I say they must lard with little pieces of Bacon, they know what I mean." I have been greatly charmed with Hannah Glasse's "Art of Cookery," 1747, and with her "Complete Confectioner" likewise in a modified degree. The latter was partly derived, she tells you, from the manuscript of "a very old experienced housekeeper to a family of the first distinction." But, nevertheless, both are very admirable performances; and yet the compiler survives scarcely more than in an anecdote for which I can see no authority. For she does not say, "First catch your hare" [Footnote: Mrs. Glasse's cookery book was reprinted at least as late as 1824].

Mrs. Glasse represents that, before she undertook the preparation of the volume on confectionery, there was nothing of the kind for reference and consultation. But we had already a curious work by E. Kidder, who was, according to his title-page, a teacher of the art which he expounded eventually in print. The title is sufficiently descriptive: "E. Kidder's Receipts of Pastry and Cookery, for the use of his Scholars, who teaches at his School in Queen Street, near St. Thomas Apostle's, [Footnote: In another edition his school is in St. Martin's Le Grand] on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, in the afternoon. Also on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, in the afternoon, at his School next to Furnivalls Inn in Holborn. Ladies may be taught at their own Houses." It is a large octavo, consisting of fifty pages of engraved text, and is embellished with a likeness of Mr. Kidder. For all that Mrs. Glasse ignores him.

I have shown how Mrs. Glasse might have almost failed to keep a place in the public recollection, had it not been for a remark which that lady did not make. But there is a still more singular circumstance connected with her and her book, and it is this—that in Dr. Johnson's day, and possibly in her own lifetime, a story was current that the book was really written by Dr. Hill the physician. That gentleman's claim to the authorship has not, of course, been established, but at a dinner at Dilly's the publisher's in 1778, when Johnson, Miss Seward, and others were present, a curious little discussion arose on the subject. Boswell thus relates the incident and the conversation:—"The subject of cookery having been very naturally introduced at a table, where Johnson, who boasted of the niceness of his palate, avowed that 'he always found a good dinner,' he said, 'I could write a better book about cookery than has ever yet been written; it should be a book upon philosophical principles. Pharmacy is now made much more simple. Cookery may be so too. A prescription, which is now compounded of five ingredients, had formerly fifty in it. So in Cookery. If the nature of the ingredients is well known, much fewer will do. Then, as you cannot make bad meat good, I would tell what is the best butcher's meat, the best beef, the best pieces; how to choose young fowls; the proper seasons of different vegetables; and then how to roast, and boil, and compound."

DILLY:—"Mrs. Glasse's 'Cookery,' which is the best, was written by Dr. Hill. Half the trade know this."

JOHNSON:—"Well, Sir, that shews how much better the subject of cookery may be treated by a philosopher. I doubt if the book be written by Dr Hill; for in Mrs. Glasse's Cookery, which I have looked into, saltpetre and salt-prunella are spoken of as different substances, whereas salt-prunella is only saltpetre burnt on charcoal; and Hill could not be ignorant of this. However, as the greatest part of such a book is made by transcription, this mistake may have been carelessly adopted. But you shall see what a book of cookery I could make. I 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."

But the Doctor's philosophical cookery book belongs to the voluminous calendar of works which never passed beyond the stage of proposal; he did not, so far as we know, ever draw out a title-page, as Coleridge was fond of doing; and perhaps the loss is to be borne with. The Doctor would have pitched his discourse in too high a key.

Among the gastronomical enlargements of our literature in the latter half of the last century, one of the best books in point of classification and range is that by B. Clermont, of which the third edition made its appearance in 1776, the first having been anonymous. Clermont states that he had been clerk of the kitchen in some of the first families of the kingdom, and lately to the Earl of Abingdon. But elsewhere we find that he had lived very recently in the establishment of the Earl of Ashburnham, for he observes in the preface: "I beg the candour of the Public will excuse the incorrectness of the Language and Diction. My situation in life as an actual servant to the Earl of Ashburnham at the time of the first publication of this Book will I trust plead my Apology." He informs his readers on the title-page, and repeats in the preface, that a material part of the work consists of a translation of "Les Soupers de la Cour," and he proceeds to say, that he does not pretend to make any further apology for the title ofsupper, than that the French were, in general, more elegant in their suppers than their dinners. In other words, the late dinner was still called supper.

The writer had procured the French treatise from Paris for his own use, and had found it of much service to him in his capacity as clerk of the kitchen, and he had consequently translated it, under the persuasion that it would prove an assistance to gentlemen, ladies, and others interested in such matters. He specifies three antecedent publications in France, of which his pages might be considered the essence, viz., "La Cuisine Royale," "Le Maître d'Hôtel Cuisinier," and "Les Dons de Comus"; and he expresses to some of his contemporaries, who had helped him in his researches, his obligations in the following terms:—"As every country produces many Articles peculiar to itself, and considering the Difference of Climates, which either forward or retard them, I would not rely on my own Knowledge, in regard to such Articles; I applied therefore to three Tradesmen, all eminent in their Profession, one for Fish, one for Poultry, and one for the productions of the Garden, viz., Mr. Humphrey Turner, the Manager in St. James's Market; Mr. Andrews, Poulterer in ditto; and Mr. Adam Lawson, many years chief gardener to the Earl of Ashburnham; in this article I was also assisted by Mr. Rice, Green-Grocer, in St. Albans Street." Clermont dates his remarks from Princes Street, Cavendish Square.

While Mrs. Glasse was still in the middle firmament of public favour, a little book without the writer's name was published as by "A Lady." I have not seen the first or second editions; but the third appeared in 1808. It is called "A New System of Domestic Cookery, Formed upon Principles of Economy, and Adapted to the use of Private Families." The author was Helene Rundell, of whom I am unable to supply any further particulars at present. Mrs. Rundell's cookery book, according to the preface, was originally intended for the private instruction of the daughters of the authoress in their married homes, and specially prepared with an eye to housekeepers of moderate incomes. Mrs. Rundell did not write for professed cooks, or with any idea of emolument; and she declared that had such a work existed when she first set out in life it would have been a great treasure to her. The public shared the writer's estimate of her labours, and called for a succession of impressions of the "New System," till its run was checked by Miss Acton's still more practical collection. Mrs. Rundell is little consulted nowadays; but time was when Mrs. Glasse and herself were the twin stars of the culinary empyrean.

Coming down to our own times, the names most familiar to our ears are Ude, Francatelli, and Soyer, and they are the names of foreigners [Footnote: A fourth work before me has no clue to the author, but it is like the others, of an alien complexion. It is called "French Domestic Cookery, Combining Elegance and Economy. In twelve Hundred Receipts, 12mo, 1846." Soyer's book appeared in the same year. In 1820, an anonymous writer printed a Latin poem of his own composition, called "Tabella Cibaria, a Bill of Fare, etc., etc., with Copious Notes," which seem more important than the text]. No English school of cookery can be said ever to have existed in England. We have, and have always had, ample material for making excellent dishes; but if we desire to turn it to proper account, we have to summon men from a distance to our aid, or to accept the probable alternative—failure. The adage, "God sends meat, and the devil sends cooks," must surely be of native parentage, for of no country is it so true as of our own. Perhaps, had it not been for the influx among us of French and Italian experts, commencing with our Anglo-Gallic relations under the Plantagenets, and the palmy days of the monastic orders, culinary science would not have arrived at the height of development which it has attained in the face of great obstacles. Perchance we should not have progressed much beyond the pancake and oatmeal period. But foreignchefslimit their efforts to those who can afford to pay them for their services. The middle classes do not fall within the pale of their beneficence. The poor know them not. So it happens that even as I write, the greater part of the community not only cannot afford professional assistance in the preparation of their meals, which goes without saying, but from ignorance expend on their larder twice as much as a Parisian or an Italian in the same rank of life, with a very indifferent result. There are handbooks of instruction, it is true, both for the middle and for the lower classes. These books are at everybody's command. But they are either left unread, or if read, they are not understood. I have before me the eleventh edition of Esther Copley's "Cottage Comforts," 1834; it embraces all the points which demand attention from such as desire to render a humble home comfortable and happy. The leaves have never been opened. I will not say,ex hoc disce omnes; but it really appears to be the case, that these works are not studied by those for whom they are written—not studied, at all events, to advantage.

Dr. Kitchener augmented this department of our literary stores in 1821 with his "Cook's Oracle," which was very successful, and passed through a series of editions.

In the preface to that of 1831, the editor describes the book as greatly enlarged and improved, and claims the "rapid and steady sale which has invariably attended each following edition" as a proof of the excellence of the work. I merely mention this, because in Kitchener's own preface to the seventh issue, l2mo, 1823, he says: "This last time I have found little to add, and little to alter." Such is human fallibility!

The "Cook's Oracle" was heralded by an introduction which very few men could have written, and which represents the Doctor's method of letting us know that, if we fancy him an impostor, we are much mistaken. "The following Recipes," says he, "are not a mere marrowless collection of shreds and patches, of cuttings and pastings—but a bonâ-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 calefaceous 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."

What could critics say, after this? One or two large editions must have been exhausted before they recovered their breath, and could discover how the learned Kitchener set down the receipts which he had previously devoured. But the language of the Preface helps to console us for the loss of Johnson's threatened undertaking in this direction.

Dr. Kitchener proceeded on different lines from an artist who closely followed him in the order of publication; and the two did not probably clash in the slightest degree. The cooking world was large enough to hold Kitchener and theci-devant chefto the most Christian King Louis XVI. and the Right Honourable the Earl of Sefton, Louis Eustache Ude. Ude was steward to the United Service Club, when he printed his "French Cook" in 1822. A very satisfactory and amusing account of this volume occurs in the "London Magazine" for January 1825. But whatever may be thought of Ude nowadays, he not only exerted considerable influence on the higher cookery of his day, but may almost be said to have been the founder of the modern French school in England.

Ude becamechefat Crockford's Club, which was built in 1827, the year in which his former employer, the Duke of York, died. There is a story that, on hearing of the Duke's illness, Ude exclaimed, "Ah, mon pauvre Duc, how much you shall miss me where you are gone!"

About 1827, Mrs. Johnstone brought out her well-known contribution to this section of literature under the title of "The Cook and Housewife's Manual," veiling her authorship under the pseudonym of Mistress Margaret Dods, the landlady in Scott's tale of "St. Ronan's Well," which appeared three years before (8vo, 1824).

Mrs. Johnstone imparted a novel feature to her book by investing it with a fictitious history and origin, which, like most inventions of the kind, is scarcely consistent with the circumstances, however it may tend to enliven the monotony of a professional publication.

After three prefaces in the fourth edition before me (8vo, 1829) we arrive at a heading, "Institution of the Cleikum Club," which narrates how Peregrine Touchwood, Esquire, sought to cure hisennuiand hypochondria by studying Apician mysteries; and it concludes with the syllabus of a series of thirteen lectures on cookery, which were to be delivered by the said Esquire. One then enters on the undertaking itself, which can be readily distinguished from an ordinary manual by a certain literary tone, which certainly betrays a little the hand or influence of Scott.

But though the present is a Scottish production, there is no narrow specialism in its scheme. The title-page gives a London publisher as well as an Anglo-Athenian one, and Mrs. Johnstone benevolently adapted her labours to her countrywomen and the unworthier Southrons alike.

I imagine, however, that of all the latter-day master-cooks, Alexis Soyer is most remembered. His "Gastronomic Regenerator," a large and handsome octavo volume of between 700 and 800 pages, published in 1846, lies before me. It has portraits of the compiler and his wife, and many other illustrations, and is dedicated to a Royal Duke. It was produced under the most influential patronage and pressure, for Soyer was overwhelmed with engagements, and had scruples against appearance in print. He tells us that in some library, to which he gained access, he once found among the works of Shakespeare and otherchefsin a different department, a volume with the words "Nineteenth Edition" upon it, and when he opened it, he saw to his great horror "A receipt for Ox-tail Soup!" Why this revelation exercised such a terrifying effect he proceeds to explain. It was the incongruity of a cookery book in the temple of the Muses. But nevertheless, such is the frailty of our nature, that he gradually, on regaining his composure, and at such leisure intervals as he could command, prepared the "Gastronomic Regenerator," in which he eschewed all superfluous ornaments of diction, and studied a simplicity of style germane to the subject; perchance he had looked into Kitchener's Preface. He lets us know that he had made collections of the same kind at an earlier period of his career, but had destroyed them, partly owing to his arduous duties at the Reform Club, and partly to the depressing influence of the nineteenth edition of somebody else's cookery book—probably, by the way, Ude's. The present work occupied some ten months, and was prepared amid the most stupendous interruptions from fair visitors to the Club (15,000), dinners for the members and their friends (25,000), dinner parties of importance (38), and the meals for the staff (60). He gives a total of 70,000 dishes; but it is not entirely clear whether these refer to the 38 dinner parties of importance, or to the 25,000 of inferior note, or to both. The feeling of dismay at the nineteenth edition of somebody must have been sincere, for he winds up his preface with an adjuration to his readers (whom, in the "Directions for Carving," he does not style Gentle, or Learned, or Worshipful, but HONOURABLE) not to place his labours on the same shelf with "Paradise Lost."

Soyer had also perhaps certain misgivings touching too close an approximation to otherchefsbesides Milton and Shakespeare, for he refers to the "profound ideas" of Locke, to which he was introduced, to his vast discomfort, "in a most superb library in the midst of a splendid baronial hall." But the library of the Reform Club probably contained all this heterogeneous learning. Does the "Gastronomic Regenerator," out of respect to the fastidious sentiments of its author, occupy a separate apartment in that institution with a separate curator?

It seems only the other day to me, that Soyer took Gore Lodge, and seemed in a fair way to make his removal from the Reform Club a prosperous venture. But he lost his wife, and was unfortunate in other ways, and the end was very sad indeed. "Soyez tranquille," was the epitaph proposed at the time by some unsentimental wagforpoor Madame Soyer; it soon served for them both.

But nearly concurrent with Soyer's book appeared one of humble pretensions, yet remarkable for its lucidity and precision, Eliza Acton's "Modern Cookery in all its Branches reduced to an easy practice," 16mo, 1845. I have heard this little volume highly commended by competent judges as exactly what it professes to be; and the quantities in the receipts are particularly reliable.

The first essay to bring into favourable notice the produce of Colonial cattle was, so far as I can collect, a volume published in 1872, and called "Receipts for Cooking Australian Meat, with Directions for preparing Sauces suitable for the same." This still remains a vexed question; but the consumption of the meat is undoubtedly on the increase, and will continue to be, till the population of Australasia equalises supply and demand.

Besides the authorities for this branch of the inquiry already cited, there are a few others, which it may assist the student to set down herewith:—

1. A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household (Edward III. to William and Mary). 4to, 1790.

2. The book of Nurture. By Hugh Rhodes, of the King's Chapel. Printed in the time of Henry VIII. by John Redman. 4to.

3. A Breviate touching the Order and Government of the House of a Nobleman. 1605.Archaeologia, xiii.

4. Orders made by Henry, Prince of Wales, respecting his Household. 1610.Archaeologia, xiv.

5. The School of Good Manners. By William Phiston or Fiston. 8vo, 1609.

6. The School of Virtue, the Second Part. By Richard West. 12mo, 1619.

7. The School of Grace; or, A Book of Nurture. By John Hart. 12mo. (About 1680.)

8. England's Newest Way in all Sorts of Cookery. By Henry Howard, Free Cook of London. 8vo, London, 1703.

9. A Collection of above three hundred Receipts in Cookery, Physick and Surgery, for the use of all Good Wives, Tender Mothers, and Careful Nurses. By several Hands. The second edition, to which is added a second part. 8vo, London, 1729. Fifth edition, 8vo, London, 1734.

10. The Compleat City and Country Cook. By Charles Carter. 8vo, London, 1732.

11. The Compleat Housewife: or, Accomplish'd Gentlewomans Companion: Being a collection of upwards of Five Hundred of the most approved Receipts in Cookery, Pastry, Confectionery, Preserving, Pickles, Cakes, Creams, Jellies, Made Wines, Cordials. With Copper Plates.... And also Bills of Fare for every month in the year.... By E. Smith. Seventh edition, with very large additions, near fifty Receipts being communicated just before the author's death. 8vo, London, 1736. Eleventh edition. 8vo, London, 1742.

12. The Complete Family Piece: A very Choice Collection of Receipts in... Cookery. Seventh Edition. 8vo, London, 1737.

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

14. A Treatise of all Sorts of Foods, both Animal and Vegetable, and also of Drinkables, written originally in French by the Learned M.L. Lemery. Translated by D. Hay, M.D. 8vo, London, 1745.

15. The Housekeeper's Pocket-Book. By Sarah Harrison. Sixth edition, 2 vols. 12mo, London, 1755.

16. Professed Cookery. By Ann Cook. Third edition. 8vo, London (about 1760).

17. The Experienced English Housekeeper. By Elizabeth Raffald. Second edition. 8vo, London, 1771. There were an eighth, tenth, and eleventh editions, and two others, described as "New Editions," between this date and 1806. The compiler dedicates her book to "The honourable Lady Elizabeth Warburton," in whose service she had been. She mentions that the volume was published by subscription, and that she had obtained eight hundred names. In the preface Mrs. Raffald begins by observing: "When I reflect upon the number of books already in print upon this subject, andwith what contempt they are read, I cannot but be apprehensive that this may meet the same fate with some who will censure before they either see it or try its value." She concludes by saying that she had not meddled with physical receipts, "leaving them to the physician's superior judgment, whose proper province they are." The author of the "Experienced Housekeeper" tells us that she had not only filled that post in noble families during fifteen years, but had travelled with her employers, and so widened her sphere of observation.

18. The Young Ladies' Guide in the Art of Cookery. By Elizabeth Marshall. 8vo, Newcastle, 1777.

19. English Housewifery Exhibited in above 450 Receipts. By Elizabeth Moxon. Fourth edition. 8vo, Leeds (about 1780).

20. The Practice of Modern Cookery. By George Dalrymple. 8vo, Edinburgh, 1781.

21. The Ladies' Assistant for Regulating and Supplying the Table. By Charlotte Mason. 8vo, London, 1786.

22. The Compleat Family Companion. 8vo, London, 1787 (?).

23. The Honours of the Table; or, Rules for Behaviour during Meals, with the whole Art of Carving.... By the Author of "Principles of Politeness," etc. (Trusler). Second edition. Woodcuts by Bewick. 12mo, London, 1791.

24. The French Family Cook: being a complete system of French Cookery. From the French. 8vo, London, 1793.

25. The British Housewife; or, The Cook's, Housekeeper's, and Gardener's Companion. By Martha Bradley. 8vo.

26. Cookery and Pastry. By Mrs. Macivey. New edition, 12mo, Edinburgh, 1800.

27. The London Art of Cookery. By John Farley. Fourth edition. 8vo, London, 1807.

28. The School of Good Living; or, A Literary and Historical Essay on the European Kitchen, beginning with Cadmus, the Cook and King, and concluding with the Union of Cookery and Chymistry. 12 mo, London, 1804.

29.Culina Famulatur Medicina. Receipts in Modern Cookery, with a Medical Commentary by Ignotus, and revised by A. Hunter, M.D., F.A.S.L. and E. Fourth edition, 12mo, York, 1806.

30. The Universal Cook. By Francis Collingwood and T. Woollams. Fourth edition. 8vo, London, 1806.

31. A Complete System of Cookery. By John Simpson, Cook. 8vo, London, 1806. Again, 8vo, London, 1816.

32. Simpson's Cookery Improved and Modernised. By H.W. Brand. 8vo, London, 1834.

33. The Imperial and Royal Cook. By Frederick Nutt, Esquire, Author of the "Complete Confectioner." 8vo, London, 1809.

34. The Housekeeper's Domestic Library. By Charles Millington. 8vo, London, 1810.

35. The Housekeeper's Instructor; or, Universal Family Book. By W.A. Henderson. Seventeenth edition. By S.C. Schrubbelie, Cook to the Albany, London. 8vo, London, 1811.

36. The Art of Preserving all kinds of animal and vegetable Substances for several years. By M. Appert. Translated from the French. Second edition. 8vo, London, 1812. With a folding Plate.

37. Domestic Economy and Cookery, for Rich and Poor. By a Lady. 8vo, London, 1827. In the preface the author apprises us that a long residence abroad had enabled her to become a mistress of the details of foreign European cookery; but she adds: "The mulakatanies and curries of India; the sweet pillaus, yahourt, and cold soups of Persia; the cubbubs, sweet yaughs and sherbets of Egypt; the cold soups and mixed meats of Russia, the cuscussous and honeyed paste of Africa, have been inserted with the view of introducing a less expensive and more wholesome and a more delicate mode of cookery."

38. Apician Morsels; or, Tales of the Table, Kitchen, and Larder. By Dick Humelbergius Secundus. 8vo, London, 1834.

39. Cottage Economy and Cookery. 8vo, London, 1844.[Footnote: Reprinted from the Journal of the Agricultural Society, 1843, vol. iii, part I].

The staple food among the lower orders in Anglo-Saxon and the immediately succeeding times was doubtless bread, butter, and cheese, the aliment which goes so far even yet to support our rural population, with vegetables and fruit, and occasional allowances of salted bacon and pancakes, beef, or fish. The meat was usually boiled in a kettle suspended on a tripod [Footnote: The tripod is still employed in many parts of the country for a similar purpose] over a wood-fire, such as is used only now, in an improved shape, for fish and soup.

The kettle which is mentioned, as we observe, in the tale of "Tom Thumb," was the universal vessel for boiling purposes [Footnote: An inverted kettle was the earliest type of the diving-bell], and the bacon-house (or larder), so called from the preponderance of that sort of store over the rest, was the warehouse for the winter stock of provisions [Footnote: What is called in some places the keeping-room also accommodated flitches on the walls, and hams ranged along the beams overhead; and it served at the same time for a best parlour]. The fondness for condiments, especially garlic and pepper, among the higher orders, possibly served to render the coarser nourishment of the poor more savoury and flavorous. "It is interesting to remark," says Mr. Wright [Footnote: "Domestic Manners and Sentiments," 1862, p. 91], "that the articles just mentioned (bread, butter, and cheese) have preserved their Anglo-Saxon names to the present time, while all kinds of meat—beef, veal, mutton, pork, even bacon—have retained only the names given to them by the Normans; which seems to imply that flesh-meat was not in general use for food among the lower classes of society."

In Malory's compilation on the adventures of King Arthur and his knights, contemporary with the "Book of St. Alban's," we are expressly informed in the sixth chapter, how the King made a great feast at Caerleon in Wales; but we are left in ignorance of its character. The chief importance of details in this case would have been the excessive probability that Malory would have described an entertainment consonant with the usage of his own day, although at no period of early history was there ever so large an assemblage of guests at one time as met, according to the fable, to do honour to Arthur.

In the tenth century Colloquy of Archbishop Alfric, the boy is made to say that he is too young to eat meat, but subsists on cabbages, eggs, fish, cheese, butter, beans, and other things, according to circumstances; so that a vegetable diet was perhaps commoner in those days even among the middle classes than at present. This youth, when he is asked what he drinks, replies, water, or ale if he can get it. The dish so deftly constructed by King Arthur, according to one of his numerous biographers, exhibited that wedlock of fruit with animal matter—fat and plums—which we post-Arthurians eye with a certain fastidious repugnance, but which, notwithstanding, lingered on to the Elizabethan or Jacobaean era—nay, did not make the gorge of our grandsires turn rebellious. It survives among ourselves only in the modified shape of such accessories as currant jelly and apple sauce.

But the nursery rhyme about Arthur and the bag-pudding of barley meal with raisins and meat has a documentary worth for us beyond the shadowy recital of the banquet at Caerleon, for,mutato nomine, it is the description of a favourite article of popular diet in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The narrative of Mrs. Thumb and her pudding is more circumstantial than that of King Alfred and the housewife; and if the tradition is worthless, it serves us so far, that it faithfully portrays a favourite item of rustic consumption in old times. We are told that the pudding was made in a bowl, and that it was chiefly composed of the flesh and blood of a newly-killed hog, laid in batter; and then, when all was ready, the bag with all its savoury burden was put into a kettle.

As we are already on the threshold of legend and myth, we may linger there a moment to recall to memory the resemblance between the description of this piece of handiwork and that ascribed to good King Arthur, who lived in days when monarchs were their ownchefs, for the Arthurian dish was also prepared in a bag, and consisted, according to the ditty, of barley-meal and fat. Soberly speaking, the two accounts belong, maybe, to something like the same epoch in the annals of gastronomy; and a large pudding was, for a vast length of time, no doubt, a prevailingpiece de résistancein all frugal British households. It was the culinary forefather of toad-in-the-hole, hot-pot, Irish stew, and of that devil-dreaded Cornish pasty. The Elizabethan transmitters of these two Apician nuggets possibly antedated the popular institution of the bag-pudding; but the ancientest gastronomical records testify to the happy introduction of the frying-pan about the era when we were under Alfred's fatherly sway. It may have even preceded the grill, just as the fork lagged behind the spoon, from which it is a seeming evolution. That no reader may doubt the fact, that Tom's mother made the pudding, and that Tom held the candle, we refer to the old edition of this choice piece of chapman's ware, where an accurate drawing of Mrs. Thumb, and the board, and the bowl, and Tom with the candle, may be inspected. Theprima staminaof the modern fruit-pudding really appear to be found in the ancient bag-pudding, of which Tom Thumb had such excellent reason to be acquainted with the contents. The mode of construction was similar, and both were boiled in a cloth. The material and subsidiary treatment of course differed; but it is curious that no other country possesses either the tart or the pudding, as we understand them, and as the latter has perhaps been developed from the dish, of the making of which Tom Thumb was an eye-witness to his sorrow, so the covered fruit tart may not improbably be an outgrowth from the old coffin pasty of venison or game, with the superaddition of a dish for the safe custody of the juice.

Another rather prominent factor in the diet of the poor classes, not only in Scotland but in the North of England, was oatmeal variously prepared. One very favourable and palatable way was by grinding the meal a second time as fine as flour, boiling it, and then serving it with hot milk or treacle. There is something in the nature of this food so peculiarly satisfying and supporting, that it seems to have been destined to become the staple nourishment of a poor population in a cold and bracing climate. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries unquestionably saw a great advance in the mystery of cookery and in the diversity of dishes, and the author of "Piers of Fulham" complains, that men were no longer satisfied with brawn and powdered beef, which he terms "store of house," but would have venison, wild fowl, and heronshaw; and men of simple estate, says he, will have partridges and plovers, when lords lack. He adds quaintly:

"A mallard of the dunghill is good enough for me,With pleasant pickle, or it is else poison. pardy."

"A mallard of the dunghill is good enough for me,

With pleasant pickle, or it is else poison. pardy."

We have for our purpose a very serviceable relic of the old time, called "A Merry Jest, how the Ploughman learned his Paternoster." The scene purports to be laid in France, and the general outline may have been taken from the French; but it is substantially English, with allusions to Kent, Robin Hood, and so forth, and it certainly illustrates the theme upon which we are. This ploughman was in fact a farmer or husbandman, and the account of his dwelling and garden-stuff is very interesting. We are told that his hall-roof was full of bacon-flitches, and his store-room of eggs, butter, and cheese. He had plenty of malt to make good ale—

"And Martlemas beef to him was not dainty;Onions and Garlic had he enough,And good cream, and milk of the cow."

"And Martlemas beef to him was not dainty;

Onions and Garlic had he enough,

And good cream, and milk of the cow."

But in "Vox Populi Vox Dei," written about 1547, and therefore apparently not from the pen of Skelton, who died in 1529, it is said that the price of an ox had risen to four pounds, and a sheep without the wool to twelve shillings and upwards, so that the poor man could seldom afford to have meat at his table. This evil the writer ascribes to the exactions of the landlord and the lawyer. The former charged too highly for his pastures, and the latter probably advanced money on terms. The old poem depicts in sad colours the condition of the yeoman at the same period, that had had once plenty of cows and cream, butter, eggs, cheese, and honey; all which had gone to enrich upstarts who throve by casting-counters and their pens. The story of the "King and a poor Northern Man," 1640, also turns upon the tyranny of the lawyers over ignorant clients.

The "Serving-man's Comfort," 1598, draws a somewhat gloomy picture of the times. The prices of all provisions, among other points, had trebled since the good old days, when his father and grandfather kept house. Then people could buy an ox for 20s., a sheep for 3s., a calf for 2s., a goose for 6d., a capon for 4d., a hen for 2d., a pig for the same, and all other household provisions at a like rate. The reason given by the farmer was that the landlords had raised their rent. Let them have the land on the old terms, and the former prices would pay. This plea and demand have come back home to us in 1886.

The tradition is, that when Queen Elizabeth received the intelligence of the defeat of the Armada, she was dining off a goose—doubtless about eleven o'clock in the morning. It was an anxious moment, and perhaps her majesty for the moment had thrown ceremony somewhat aside, and was "keeping secret house."

The author of the "Serving-man's Comfort," 1598, also laments the decay of hospitality. "Where," he inquires "are the great chines of stalled beef, the great, black jacks of double beer, the long hall-tables fully furnished with good victuals?" But he seems to have been a stickler for the solid fare most in vogue, according to his complaint, formerly; and he represents to us that in lieu of it one had to put up with goose-giblets, pigs' pettitoes, and so many other boiled meats, forced meats, and made dishes. Things were hardly so very bad, however, if, as he states previously, the curtailment of the expenditure on the table still left, as a medium repast, two or three dishes, with fruit and cheese after. The black jack here mentioned was not discarded till comparatively modern days. Nares, who published his Glossary in 1822, states that he recollects them in use.

"A meal's meat twice a week, worth a groat," is mentioned as the farm servant's portion in "Civil and Uncivil Life," 1579. In "A Piece of Friar Bacon's Brasen-heads Prophesie," a unique poem, 1604, we read that at that time a cheesecake and a pie were held "good country meat." The author adds:

"Ale and Spice, and Curdes and Creame,Would make a Scholler make a Theame."

"Ale and Spice, and Curdes and Creame,

Would make a Scholler make a Theame."

Breton, in his "Fantasticks," 1626, observes: "Milk, Butter and Cheese are the labourers dyet; and a pot of good Beer quickens his spirits."

Norfolk dumplings were celebrated in John Day the playwright's time. He has put into the mouth of his east-country yeoman's son, Tom Strowd, in "The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green," written long before it was printed in 1659, the following:—"As God mend me, and ere thou com'st into Norfolk, I'll give thee as good a dish of Norfolk dumplings as ere thou laydst thy lips to;" and in another passage of the same drama, where Swash's shirt has been stolen, while he is in bed, he describes himself "as naked as your Norfolk dumplin." In the play just quoted, Old Strowd, a Norfolk yeoman, speaks of his contentment with good beef, Norfolk bread, and country home-brewed drink; and in the "City Madam," 1658, Holdfast tells us that before his master got an estate, "his family fed on roots and livers, and necks of beef on Sundays." I cite these as traits of the kind of table kept by the lower grades of English society in the seventeenth century.

Slender: You are afraid, if you see the bear loose, are you not?Anne: Aye, indeed, SirSlender: That's meat and drink to me, now.MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, i, 1.

Slender: You are afraid, if you see the bear loose, are you not?

Anne: Aye, indeed, Sir

Slender: That's meat and drink to me, now.

MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, i, 1.

The manufacture of wine and of fruit preserves, and many of the processes of cookery, could have scarcely been accomplished without a large and constant supply of sugar.

The exact date of the first introduction of the latter into England continues to be a matter of uncertainty. It was clearly very scarce, and doubtless equally dear, when, in 1226, Henry III. asked the Mayor of Winchester to procure him three pounds of Alexandria sugar, if so much could be got, and also some rose and violet-coloured sugar; nor had it apparently grown much more plentiful when the same prince ordered the sheriffs of London to send him four loaves of sugar to Woodstock. But it soon made its way into the English homes, and before the end of the thirteenth century it could be procured even in remote provincial towns. It was sold either by the loaf or the pound. It was still exorbitantly high in price, varying from eighteen pence to three shillings a pound of coeval currency; and it was retailed by the spice-dealers.

In Russell's "Book of Nurture," composed about 1450, it occurs as an ingredient in hippocras; and one collects from a letter sent by Sir Edward Wotton to Lord Cobham from Calais in 1546, that at that time the quantities imported were larger, and the price reduced; for Wotton advises his correspondent of a consignment of five-and-twenty loaves at six shillings the loaf. One loaf was equal to ten pounds; this brought the commodity down to eight pence a pound of fifteenth century money.

The sugar of Cyprus was also highly esteemed; that of Bezi, in the Straits of Sunda, was the most plentiful; but the West Indian produce, as well as that of Mauritius, Madeira, and other cane-growing countries, was unknown.

Of bread, the fifteenth century had several descriptions in use: pain-main or bread of very fine flour, wheat-bread, barley-meal bread, bran-bread, bean-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 Serving-man's Comfort," 1598, however, seems to say that it was counted by the poorer sort at that time a hardship only to be tolerated in a dear year to mix beans and peas with their corn, and he adds: "So must I yield you a loaf of coarse cockle, having no acquaintance with coin to buy corn."

In aNominaleof this period mention is made of "oblys," or small round loaves, perhaps like the old-fashioned "turnover"; and we come across the explicit phrase,a loaf of bread, for the first time, a pictorial vocabulary of the period even furnishing us with a representation of its usual form.

Nor were the good folks of those days without their simnels, cracknels, and other sorts of cakes for the table, among which in thewastelwe recognise the equivalent of the modern Frenchgâteau.

Besides march-pain or pain-main, and pain-puff, two sorts baked on special occasions, and rather entering into the class of confectionery, our better-to-do ancestors usually employed three descriptions of bread: manchete for the master's table, made of fine boulted flour; chete, of unboulted flour, but not mixed with any coarser ingredient; and brown-bread, composed of flour and rye meal, and known asmaslin(mystelon).

A bushel of wheat, in a romance of the thirteenth century, is estimated to produce twenty loaves; but the statement is obviously to be taken with allowance. The manchet was sometimes thought to be sufficient without butter, as we now eat a scone. In the "Conceits of Old Hobson," 1607, the worthy haberdasher of the Poultry gives some friends what is facetiously described as a "light" banquet—a cup of wine and a manchet of bread on a trencher for each guest, in an apartment illuminated with five hundred candles.

There is no pictorial record of the mode in which the early baker worked here, analogous to that which Lacroix supplies of his sixteenth centuryconfrère. The latter is brought vividly enough before us in a copy of one of Jost Amman's engravings, and we perceive the bakery and its tenants: one (apparently a female) kneading the dough in a trough at the farther end, a second by a roasting fire, with a long ladle or peel in his hand, putting the loaf on the oven, and a third, who is a woman, leaving the place with two baskets of bread, one on her head and one on her arm; the baker himself is almost naked, like the operatives in a modern iron furnace. The artist has skilfully realised the oppressive and enervating atmosphere; and it was till lately quite usual to see in the side streets of Paris in the early morning theboulangerat work precisely in the same informal costume. So tenacious is usage, and so unchanging many of the conditions of life.

The Anglo-Norman used butter where his Italian contemporary used oil. But it is doubtful whether before the Conquest our ancestors were commonly acquainted with butter.

The early cook understood the art of glazing with yolk of egg, and termed it endoring, and not less well that of presenting dishes under names calculated to mislead the intended partaker, as where we find a receipt given forpome de oringe, which turns out to be a preparation of liver of pork with herbs and condiments, served up in the form of glazed force-meat balls.

Venison was salted in troughs. In the tale of "The King and the Hermit," the latter exhibits to his unknown visitor his stock of preserved venison from the deer, which he had shot in the forest.

The mushroom, of which so many varieties are at present recognised by botanists, seems, from the testimony of an Italian, Giacomo Castelvetri, who was in London in 1614, and to whom I have already referred, to have been scarcely known here at that time. I cannot say, of course, how far Castelvetri may have prosecuted his inquiries, though he certainly leaves the impression of having been intelligently observant; or whether he includes in this observation the edible toadstools; but even now much unreasonable prejudice exists as to the latter, and very limited use is made of any but two or three familiar sorts of the mushroom itself. It is a pity that this misconception should not be dissipated.

Caviary had been brought into England, probably from Russia, at the commencement of the seventeenth century, perhaps sooner. In 1618, "The Court and Country," by Breton, seems to represent it as an article of diet which was little known, and not much relished; for a great lady had sent the writer's father a little barrel of it, and it was no sooner opened than it was fastened down again, to be returned to the donor with a respectful message that her servant had black soap enough already.

In the time of James I. the ancient bill of fare had been shorn of many of its coarser features, so far as fish was concerned; and the author of "The Court and Country" tells a story to shew that porpoise-pie was a dish which not even a dog would eat.

The times had indeed changed, since a King and a Cardinal-archbishop judged this warm-blooded sea-dweller a fit dish for the most select company.

It is not a despicable or very ascetic regimen which Stevenson lays before us under April in his reproduction of Breton's "Fantasticks," 1626, under the title of the "Twelve Months," 1661:—"The wholesome dyet that breeds good sanguine juyce, such as pullets, capons, sucking veal, beef not above three years Old, a draught of morning milk fasting from the cow; grapes, raysons, and figs be good before meat; Rice with Almond Milk, birds of the Field, Peasants and Partridges, and fishes of stony rivers, Hen eggs potcht, and such like."

Under May he furnishes us with a second and not less appetisingmenu:—

"Butter and sage are now the wholesome Breakfast, but fresh cheese and cream are meat for a dainty mouth; the early Peascods and Strawberries want no price with great Bellies; but the Chicken and the Duck are fatted for the Market; the sucking Rabbet is frequently taken in the Nest, and many a Gosling never lives to be a Goose."

Even so late as the succeeding reign, Breton speaks of the good cheer at Christmas, and of the cook, if he lacks not wit, sweetly licking his fingers.

The storage of liquids became a difficult problem where, as among our ancestors, glazed pottery was long unknown; and more especially with regard to the supply of water in dry seasons. But so far as milk was concerned, the daily yield probably seldom exceeded the consumption; and among the inhabitants further north and east, who, as Caesar says, partook also of flesh, and did not sow grain—in other words, were less vegetarian in their habits from the more exhausting nature of the climate—the consideration might be less urgent. It is open to doubt if, even in those primitive times, the supply of a national want lagged far behind the demand.

The list of wines which the King of Hungary proposed to have at the wedding of his daughter, in "The Squire of Low Degree," is worth consulting. Harrison, in his "Description of England," 1586, speaks of thirty different kinds of superior vintages and fifty-six of commoner or weaker kinds. But the same wine was perhaps known under more than one name.

Romney or Rumney, a Hungarian growth, Malmsey from the Peloponnesus, and Hippocras were favourites, and the last-named was kept as late as the last century in the buttery of St. John's College, Cambridge, for use during the Christmas festivities. But France, Spain, Greece, almost all countries, contributed to furnish the ancient wine-cellar, and gratify the variety of taste among connoisseurs; and for such as had not the means to purchase foreign productions, the juice of the English grape, either alone or mingled with honey and spice, furnished a not unpalatable and not very potent stimulant. As claret and hock with us, so anciently Bastard and Piment were understood in a generic sense, the former for any mixed wine, the latter for one seasoned with spice.

In "Colin Blobol's Testament," a whimsical production of the fifteenth century, Tent and Valencia wines are mentioned, with wine of Languedoc and Orleans. But perhaps it will be best to cite the passage:—

"I trow there shall be an honest fellowship, save first shall they of ale have new backbones. With strong ale brewed in vats and in tuns; Ping, Drangollie, and the Draget fine, Mead, Mattebru, and the Metheling. Red wine, the claret and the white, with Tent and Alicant, in whom I delight. Wine of Languedoc and of Orleans thereto: Single beer, and other that is double: Spruce beer, and the beer of Hamburgh: Malmsey, Tires, and Romany."

But some of the varieties are hidden under obscure names. We recognise Muscadel, Rhine wine, Bastard, Hippocras, however. On the 10th of December, 1497, Piers Barber received six shillings and eight pence, according to the "Privy Purse Expences of Henry VII.," "for spice for ypocras."

Metheglin and beer of some kind appear to be the most ancient liquors of which there are any vestiges among the Britons. Ferguson, in his Essay "On the Formation of the Palate," states that they are described by a Greek traveller, who visited the south of Britain in the fourth century B.C. This informant describes metheglin as composed of wheat and honey (of course mixed with water), and the beer as being of sufficient strength to injure the nerves and cause head-ache.

Worlidge, in his "Vinetum Britannicum," 1676, gives us receipts for metheglin and birch wine. Breton, in his "Fantasticks," 1626, under January, recommends a draught of ale and wormwood wine mixed in a morning to comfort the heart, scour the maw, and fulfil other beneficial offices.

The English beer of by-gone times underwent many vicissitudes, and it was long before our ancestors conquered their dislike to the bitter hop, after having been accustomed to a thick, sweet liquor of which the modern Kentish ale is in some measure a survival. Beer was made from a variety of grain; oats were most commonly employed. In France, they resorted even to vetches, lentils, rye, and darnel. But as a rule it was a poor, thin drink which resulted from the operation, and the monks of Glastonbury deemed themselves fortunate in being allowed by their abbot to put a load of oats into the vat to improve the quality of the beverage; which may account for Peter of Blois characterising the ale in use at Court in his day (he died about the end of the twelfth century) as potent—it was by contrast so. The first assize of ale seems not to have been enacted till the reign of Henry III.

From a glossary of the fourteenth century, inserted in "Reliquse Antique," 1841, it appears that whey was then used as a drink; it occurs there as "cerum, i, quidam liquor, whey."

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