:
"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
bona-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 the _ci-devant chef_ to 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 became _chef_ at 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