ench 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 cucumbers, 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 constituency, 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 titles of "A Proper New Book of Cookery,"
or "The Book of Cookery." Notwithstanding the presence of many
competitors, 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 receip
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