but were compiled mostly from anterior works; we have no knowledge of
his having been a practical cook. For that matter, he states in his
dedication to the Countess Dowager of Exeter that he does not "assume
to himself the full invention and scope of the work, for it is true
that much of it was a manuscript which many years agone belonged to
an Honourable Countess, one of the greatest Glories of our Kingdom."
The material, therefore, is due mainly to a member of the gentler sex,
while Markham is responsible for the _liaison_. A voluminous author, he
did not hesitate to appropriate whatever material he could find on any
topic, more especially on husbandry and angling, and send it out as his
own. It is well known, for example, that his "Art of Fishing" in his
"Country Contentments" is only a prose rendition of Dennys' attractive
poem "The Secrets of Angling." He has been spoken of as the first hack
writer of England, all subjects seeming to have been alike to him. So
that "The English Housewife," which also includes much interesting
information on physics, the dairy, etc., may be regarded as virtually a
work of the Elizabethan period.
[Illustration: THE ENGLISH HOUSEWIFE
Facsimile of title-page]
In Markham's treatise there is a sauce for green-geese and one for
stubble-geese, a sauce for pigeons and stock-doves, a _gallantine_ for
bitterns, bustards, and herns. A _quelquechose_ was a fricassee or a
mixture of many ingredients, and meats broiled upon the coals were
termed _carbonadoes_. Verjuice was made from crab-apples, to which
damask-rose leaves were added previous to fermentation. Vinegar was
frequently made from ale placed in the sun to sour, and flavoured with
leaves of damask roses. A recipe for hippocras is naturally given,
together with directions for the manufacture of all manner of wines
and beverages. Puddings, pies, and tarts were still more familiar
then than now. Of pies there was an infinite assortment--from Olave,
marrow-bone, hare, chicken, bacon, herring, ling, and calves'-foot
to oyster, chewet, Warden, pippin, Codlin, and minc'd. Markham's
recipe for "A Herring Pye" will serve as well as any to illustrate
the character of the amalgams that passed under the names of pies,
puddings, and tarts:
"_A Herring Pye_:--Take white pickled Herrings of one night's
watering, and boyl them a little, then take off the skin, and
take only the backs of them, and pick the fish clean from the
bones; then take good store of Raisins of the sun, and stone
them; and put them to the Fish; then take a Warden or two,
and pare it, and slice it in small slices from the core, and
put it likewise to the fish; then with a very sharp shredding
Knife shred all as small and fine as may be: then put to it
good store of Currants, Sugar, Cinnamon, slic't Dates, and so
put it into the coffin, with good store of sweet Butter, and
so cover it, and leave onely a round vent-hole on the top of
the lid, and so bake it like Pies of that nature. When it is
sufficiently bak't, draw it out, and take Claret Wine, and a
little Verjuyce, Sugar, Cinnamon, and sweet Butter, and boyl
them together: then put it in at the vent-hole, and shake the
Pye a little, and put it again into the Oven for a little
space, and so serve it up, the lid being candied over with
Sugar, and the sides of the dish trimmed with Sugar."
But many recipes are given in the cook-books, both in the old and
the new, which the wise reader will avoid, and perchance Markham's
herring-pie was among the number. It were pleasanter, at any rate,
to take John Fletcher's prescription for some contemporaneous dishes,
where, after he would have "the pig turn merrily, merrily, ah! and let
the fat goose swim," he exclaims:
"The stewed cock shall crow, cock-a-loodle loo,
A loud cock-a-loodle shall he crow;
The duck and the drake shall swim in a lake
Of onions and claret below."
The wines and beverages of old corresponded to many of the dishes
themselves; which of these was most productive of indigestion it were
difficult to state. Hippocras, so generously indulged in, not to
mention posset, mead, metheglin, and perry, must have been a potent
factor in fomenting the uric-acid diathesis. When to these common
beverages are added the fiery, heavy, sweet, and mixed wines that were
in general use, it is scarcely surprising that the seeds of gout were
sown broadcast, and that the indiscretions of the fathers were visited
upon the children unto the existing generation. Even Milton did not
escape, while Spenser, Sir William Temple, and a host of worthies who
were supposed to be abstemious in their diet were victims to arthritic
complaints. How Shakespeare eluded the malady seems a miracle, in
view of the existing viands and beverages and the necessary lack of
exercise attendant on his literary pursuits. Alexander Neckham, in his
twelfth-century treatise, mentions claré and nectar as proper to be
found in the cellar or in the storehouse. Claré was a mixture of clear
red wine, the best of which came from Guyenne, with honey, sugar, and
spices, as distinguished from piment or nectar, a similar compound,
but with more substance, founded on the red wine of Burgundy, Dauphiné,
etc.
In ancient days the taste was for "strong, sharp, and full-flavoured"
wines. Bordeaux, or "claret," as it is now made was unknown.
Vitification and vinification were then undeveloped compared with the
present time. In place of the existing delicate growths of the Médoc
were the fiery wines of Guyenne and Gascony and the heavy products
of Provence and Languedoc. It is to be supposed, likewise, that the
Rhenish wines at that time were totally different from those of the
Rheingau and the Bavarian Palatinate now. But the kinds mostly in vogue
were sack and malmsey, muscadel and canary, and "bastard" or malaga,
port as yet not having been introduced into England.
The punch-bowl or wassail-bowl, the goddard, caudle-cup and posset-pot,
were all in use in England in olden days--punch, or "pauch," however,
being a drink of Indian origin, the word meaning five, and so named
from its five ingredients: arrack, tea, sugar, lemon-juice, and water.
Grog is an English beverage of later introduction. Admiral Vernon,
in 1745, having put an end to the use by the English navy of ale,
substituted for it rum diluted with water. The admiral was dubbed by
the sailors "Old Grog," because of an old cloak of grogram which he
always wore in foul weather, and hence it came naturally about that the
new potation of the high seas acquired its present name.
Mead, the favourite tipple of Queen Bess, was made by boiling honey
and water together, with quantities of spices, herbs, and lemons;
when it had stood for three months, the liquor was bottled and
was ready to drink six weeks afterwards. Butler, in "The Feminine
Monarchy, or History of Bees," draws a distinction between mead and
metheglin, making hydromel the generic term. In the old cookery books
and "Housewives" we find directions how to make strong Mead and small
White Mead. Artificial Frontignac wine was made by boiling water,
sugar, and raisins together, adding elder-flowers, syrup of lemons,
and ale yeast. "English Champagne" was composed of water, sugar, and
currants boiled, with the addition of balm; and, when bottled, a small
lump of double-refined sugar was used to impart effervescence. In a
somewhat similar manner numerous other forms of wine were compounded,
as Saragossa or English Sack, Quince, Mountain, Plum, Birch, and Sage.
Perhaps the most bizarre of all ancient concoctions is one termed
"Cock Ale," for which this recipe is presented in E. Smith's "Compleat
Housewife" (1736):
"_To make Cock Ale_:--Take ten gallons of ale, and a large
cock, the older the better, parboil the cock, flea him, and
stamp him in a stone mortar till his bones are broken, (you
must craw and gut him when you flea him), put the cock into
two quarts of sack, and put to it three pounds of raisins of
the sun stoned, some blades of mace, and a few cloves; put all
these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale
has done working, put the ale and bag together into a vessel;
in a week or nine days' time bottle it up, fill the bottles
but just above the necks, and leave the same time to ripen as
other ale."
A notable advance in the art was accomplished during the latter part
of the reign of Charles II, who was somewhat of a cook as well as an
epicure. The sirloin of beef is said to owe its name to this monarch,
who, dining upon a loin of beef with which he was particularly pleased,
inquired the name of the joint, saying its merit was so great that
it deserved to be knighted, and that thenceforth it should be called
_Sir-Loin_. The Parisian school soon became fashionable, and numerous
works on cookery made their appearance. But, like the fifteenth Louis
when intent upon his pleasures at the Parc aux Cerfs, the second
Charles, amid his dissolute court and its frail beauties whom Sir
Peter Lely has drawn for us, had other matters to engage his serious
attention than presiding at the range or posing as a patron of culinary
authors. Pies, tarts, and pasties now met with increased favour, and
"The Accomplisht Cook, or The Art and Mystery of Cookery" of Robert
May, the first edition of which appeared in 1665, became the oracle of
feasting and dining. "God and his own conscience," the author states,
would not permit him "to bury his experiences with his silver hairs in
the grave."
From Pepys' "Diary" one may obtain much information regarding the
mode of living at the time. That the English appetite had suffered no
decline is apparent from nearly any one of his entries relating to the
subject. John and Joan may have continued to live "meanely," but such
can scarcely be said of the better classes. Thus, under date of January
26, 1659, Pepys speaks of coming home from his office to my lord's
lodgings, where his wife had "got ready a very fine dinner, viz.: a
dish of marrow-bones, a leg of mutton, a loin of veal, a dish of fowl,
three pullets, and a dozen of larks all in a dish; a great tart, a
neat's-tongue, a dish of anchovies, a dish of prawns, and cheese."
On March 26, 1660, having guests to dine with him, he says: "I had a
pretty dinner for them, viz.: a brace of stewed carps, six roasted
chickens, and a jowle of salmon hot for the first course: a tansy, a
kind of sweet dish made of eggs, cream, etc., flavoured with the juice
of tansy; and two neat's-tongues and cheese, the second. We had a man
cook to dress dinner to-day. Merry all the afternoon, talking, singing,
and piping on the flageolet."
On another occasion, April 4, 1662, he states that he "was very merry
before and after dinner, and the more for that my dinner was great,
and most neatly dressed by our own only mayde. We had a fricassee of
rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, three carps in a dish,
a great dish of a side of lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, a dish of
four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey-pie, a most rare pie, a dish of
anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all things mighty noble, and
to my great content." Another of his dinners consisted of "a ham of
French bacon boiled with pigeons, and a roasted swan, both excellent
dishes." Dining at Sir William Penn's on his wedding anniversary, he
mentions, besides a good chine of beef and other good cheer, eighteen
mince-pies in a dish--the number of years his host had been married.
Again, he speaks of drinking great quantities of claret, and of eating
botargo, a sausage made of eggs and the blood of a sea-mullet, with
bread and butter; as also of dining on a haunch of venison "powdered
and boiled, and a powdered leg of pork; also a fine salmon-pie."
It will be noted how meat, game, and fish-pies prevail, with tarts,
marrow-bones, and neat's-tongues as secondary dishes. The roast swan,
if a cygnet, may have been rather appetising, but one would feel more
secure to leave the lamprey-pie untasted, and allow the "botargo" to be
passed on to a neighbour. The salmon-pie, likewise, has an indigestible
sound, especially as there are no signs of any Chablis or hock to
serve as an antidote. Of course, the virtues of the carp would depend
entirely on the sauce, and carp sauces of those days must have been
anything but assuring. The "Diary" of Mr. Pepys says nothing of the
mornings after his dinners--the true test of a generous repast. It is
just as well, therefore, for the reader who has the welfare of his
stomach to consider, not to dream of having dined with Pepys or his
friends, or to attempt to vie with him in "claret" and "good cheer."
Far more simple, though by no means meagre, was the diet of the
rural population. In place of lobsters and fricassees with sack and
muscadel, bread, the roast of beef, mutton, and veal, and sound
home-brewed ale went to the making of strength and endurance. In
the country, the hay-harvest, sheep-shearing, and the wheat-harvest
were always occasions for special festivity, where master and men
jointly celebrated the fruits of their toil in the fields. Of all
such celebrations the Hock-Cart or Harvest-Home, when the last sheaf
of wheat had been garnered, was the most prolific of feasting and
merrymaking--a festival which is well described by Herrick, with its
attendant bill of fare:
"Come, sons of summer, by whose toil,
We are the lords of wine and oil;
By whose tough labours and rough hands,
We rip up first, then reap our lands.
Crowned with the ears of corn, now come,
And to the pipe sing harvest home.
Come forth, my lord, and see the cart
Dressed up with all the country art....
Well on, brave boys, to your lord's hearth,
Glitt'ring with fire, where, for your mirth,
Ye shall see first the large and chief
Foundation of your feast, fat beef;
With upper stories, mutton, veal,
And bacon which makes full the meal,
With several dishes standing by,
As here a custard, there a pie,
And here all-tempting frumenty.
And for to make the merry cheer,
If smirking wine be wanting here,
There's that which drowns all care, stout beer,
Which freely drink to your lord's health,
Then to the plough (the commonwealth),
Next to your flails, your fans, your vats;
Then to the maids with wheaten hats;
To the rough sickle, and the crook'd scythe,
Drink, frolic boys, till all be blythe...."
The era of Queen Anne, a noted gourmande, who achieved the feminine
distinction of acquiring the gout, was marked by the appearance of a
work on "Royal Cookery, or the Complete Court Book" (1710), by Patrick
Lamb, Esq., chef to her Majesty, who had previously served Charles II,
James II, and William and Mary. Pope's description in the "Dunciad"
would indicate that cookery was in a flourishing state under the last
of the Stuarts:
"On some a priest succinct in amice white
Attends; all flesh is nothing in his sight!
Beeves, at his touch, at once to jelly turn,
And the huge boar is shrunk into an urn;
The board with specious miracles he loads,
Turns hares to larks, and pigeons into toads.
Another (for in all what one can shine?)
Explains the _sève_ and _verdeur_ of the wine."
In 1730 appeared "The Compleat Practical Cook, or A new System of
the whole Art and Mystery of Cooking," a work with sixty curious
copperplates of courses, written by Charles Carter, cook to the Duke
of Argyll, the Earl of Pontefract, and Lord Cornwallis. In the preface
to his "City and Country Cook" the author says: "What I have published
is almost the only book, one or two excepted, which of late years has
come into the world, that has been the result of the author's own
practice and experience; for though very few eminent practical Cooks
have ever cared to publish what they knew of the art, yet they have
been prevailed on, for a small premium from a Bookseller, to lend their
names to performances in this art, unworthy their owning."
The titles of many of the early cook-books are not wanting in
quaintness or directness, as the case may be, however devoid of
practical worth their contents. Thus we find the following among a
host of other English works relating to the subject:
The Good Husive's Handmaid, 1550.
The Householder's Philosophie, 1588.
The Good Housewife's Closet of Provision, 1589.
Butte's Dyets Dry Dinner, 1599.
Dawson's Good Huswife's Jewel and rare Conceits in Cookry, 1610.
The Book of Carving and Serving, 1613.
A Closet of Delights for Ladies, 1630.
A Closet for Ladies and Gentlewomen, 1630.
Murrell's Cookerie and Manner of making Kickshawes, etc., 1630.
The Philosopher's Banquet, 1633.
The Schoolmaster, or Teacher of Table Philosophy, 1652.
The Ladies' Companion, 1653.
The Treasury of Commodious Conceits and Hidden Secrets, 1653.
The Ladies' Cabinet Opened, 1655.
Nature unembowelled, or 1720 Receipts, 1655.
The True Gentlewoman's Delight, 1671.
The Gentlewoman's Cabinet Unlocked, 1675.
The Queen-Like Closet, or Rich Cabinet, 1675.
The School of Grace, or A Book of Nurture, 1680.
Rose's School for the Officers of the Mouth, 1682.
The Queen's Closet Opened, 1683.
Hannah Wooley's Rare Receipts, 1684.
The Accomplisht Ladies' Delight, 1686.
The Kitchen Physician, 1688.
The Cupboard Door Opened, 1689.
The Queen's Cookery, 1709.
Incomperable Secrets in Cookery, 1710.
Cookery and Pastry Cards, 1720.
The Young Lady's Companion, 1734.
E. Smith's Compleat Housewife, 1736.
The Family Piece, 1741.
Adam's Luxury and Eve's Cookery, 1744.
Sarah Jackson's Cook Director, 1755.
The Cook's Cookery, and Comments on Mrs. Glasse, 1758.
Mary Smith's Compleat Housekeeper, 1772.
Sarah Harrison's Housekeeper's Pocket-Book, 1777.
Mrs. Fisher's Prudent Housewife, 1788.
Dr. Stark's Dietetical Experiments, 1788.
Mrs. Carter's Frugal Housewife, 1810.
Mrs. Powel's Art of Cookery, 1811.
Mrs. Price's New Book of Cookery, 1813.
The School of Good Living, 1814.
Young's Epicure, 1815.
Haslehurst's Family Friend, 1816.
Chamber's Ladies' Best Companion, 1820.
Here are manuals enough, in all conscience, to have produced a
progressive cuisine, were not the majority a repetition of the
crudities and barbarisms of their antecedents, where one heresy was
passed on to be augmented by another author, and by him transmitted
to his successors. Essentially differing from France, England was
unblessed with originality, and not until the influence of the splendid
restaurants of the Parisian capital had extended across the Channel
did the Briton awaken from his lethargy and cease to see through Mrs.
Glasse and Mrs. Smith darkly. Then Ude and Kitchener, Francatelli,
Walker, and Soyer appeared, to pave the way for a better condition of
cookery in the kingdom.
That the works referred to, where one has the facilities of consulting
them and the patience to peruse them, are not entirely lacking in
wit will be obvious if only from the repetition--in her "Compleat
Housewife," by Mrs. Smith, who professes "to serve the publick in what
she may"--of Ray's proverb, "God sends meat and the devil sends cooks,"
as well as from her namesake's rendition in the "Compleat Housekeeper"
of _sauce Robert_ as "Roe-Boat sauce," _omelette_ as "Hamlet," and
_soupe à la reine_ as "Soup a la Rain." Neither should a really witty
quatrain from "The Philosopher's Banquet," whose aroma almost suggests
the spikenards, musks, and galbanums of the "Hesperides," be allowed to
pass unnoticed:
"If Leekes you like, but do their smelle dis-leeke,
Eat Onyons, and you shall not smelle the Leeke;
If you of Onyons would the scente expelle,
Eat Garlicke, that shall drowne the Onyons' smelle."
It has been said of garlic that every one knows its odour save he who
has eaten it, and who wonders why every one flies at his approach.
But the onion tribe is prophylactic and highly invigorating, and even
more necessary to cookery than parsley itself. What were a salad
without the onion, whey-cheese without chives, a bouillabaisse, or
a brandade of cod without garlic, certain soups and ragoûts without
leeks, and a bordelaise sauce without shallots! And if every one eat
them, how shall they offend? "All Italy is in the fine, penetrating
smell; and all Provence; and all Spain. An onion-or garlic-scented
atmosphere hovers alike over the narrow _calli_ of Venice, the cool
courts of Cordova, and the thronged amphitheatre of Arles. It is
only the atmosphere breathed by the Latin peoples of the South, so
that ever must it suggest blue skies and endless sunshine, cypress
groves, and olive orchards. For the traveller it is interwoven with
memories of the golden canvases of Titian, the song of Dante, the
music of Mascagni."[17] In like manner, the wild leek that strews the
woodland carpet with its cool, fresh greens and pale, nodding flowers
is associated with one's first spring rambles, while yet the snowbanks
linger amid the sheltered hollows and the summons of the first flicker
resounds through the awakening groves. Decidedly, life were devoid of
a great portion of its fragrance if deprived of the resources of the
_Allium_. It is the salt of flavourings, and its rich pungency belongs
to it alone.
Most famous among culinary treatises of the eighteenth century is that
of Mrs. Glasse, first printed in 1747, and republished as late as
1803.[18] For a long period this was the _vade mecum_ of the kitchen,
and was fondled as fervently by housewives as was ever Addison by the
literarian, or Herbert by the pietist. From the original thin folio
it gradually broadened through numerous editions into a thick octavo.
The authorship of the work is in doubt, it having been variously
attributed to Dr. Hill and Dr. Hunter, London physicians, and Mrs.
Hannah Glasse of Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, habit-maker to the royal
family. Careful perusal, nevertheless, would indicate a feminine
instead of a masculine hand. The first edition of 1747 is said to be
almost as rare as the first folio of Shakespeare, being quoted, "in the
original sheep binding with rough leaves in a red morocco case," as
high as £31 10_s._ in a recent catalogue of a London bookseller.
It is stated in the preface that the work has not been written in the
"high-polite style," and that the ends the manual was intended for were
to "improve the servants and save the ladies a great deal of trouble."
The book owes its reputation, no doubt, more to the remark erroneously
credited to the author--"First catch your hare"--than to any other
cause. Certainly its recipes have little to recommend it. Mace, cloves,
nutmeg, and similar spices--ingredients that require the nicest
discrimination in their employment--are still prescribed in cyclopean
quantities, and under her régime cookery continued to remain much in
the condition described by Goldsmith:
"For palates grown callous almost to disease,
Who peppers the highest is surest to please."
Many of the old dishes, with others slightly modified, find place
in her pages, together with new dishes of singular titles: as, for
instance, "Bombarded Veal," "How to fricassee Skirrets," "to prepare
an Oxford John," "to make a Cheese-Curd Florendine," "to stew Beef
Gobbets," "to make a Pellaw the Indian way," "to make a Frangas
Incopades," "to French a Hind-Saddle of Mutton," "to make a Hedge-Hog,"
and "an Hottentot Pie," "to make an excellent Sack-Posset," etc. But
the recipes will speak best for themselves, like the following for
making "A Good Brown Gravy":
"Take a half a pint of small beer, or ale that is not bitter,
and half a pint of water, an onion cut small, a little bit
of lemon-peel cut small, three cloves, a blade of mace, some
whole pepper, a spoonful of walnut pickle, a spoonful of
catchup, and an anchovy; first put a piece of butter into a
saucepan, as big as a hen's egg, when it is melted shake in a
little flour, and let it be a little brown; then by degrees
stir in the above ingredients, and let it boil a quarter of an
hour, then strain it, and it is fit for fish or roots."
The directions for "A Liver-Pudding boiled" call for additional skill
and thorough familiarity with the art of the _charcutier_:
"Get the liver of the sheep, when you kill one, and cut it
as thin as you can, and chop it; mix it with as much suet
shred fine, half as many crumbs of bread or biscuit grated,
season it with some sweet herbs shred fine, a little nutmeg
grated, a little beaten pepper, and an anchovy shred fine; mix
all together with a little salt, or the anchovy liquor, with
a piece of butter, fill the crust and close it; boil three
hours."
In Mrs. Smith's "Compleat Housewife" (1736) we find these instructions,
entitled "To Collar A Pig":