ated performers, notwithstanding
all their professions of having ingenuously communicated their art,
industriously concealed their best receipts from the publick.

"But what I here present the world with is the product of my own
experience, and that for the space of thirty years and upwards; during
which time I have been constantly employed in fashionable and noble
families, in which the provisions ordered according to the following
directions, have had the general approbation of such as have been at
many noble entertainments.

"These receipts are all suitable to English constitutions and
English palates, wholesome, toothsome, all practicable and easy to
be performed. Here are those proper for a frugal, and also for a
sumptuous table, and if rightly observed, will prevent the spoiling
of many a good dish of meat, the waste of many good materials, the
vexation that frequently attends such mismanagements, and the curses
not unfrequently bestowed on cooks with the usual reflection, that
whereas God sends good meat, the devil sends cooks.

"As to those parts that treat of confectionary, pickles, cordials,
English wines, &c., what I have said in relation to cookery is equally
applicable to them also.

"It is true, I have not been so numerous in receipts as some who have
gone before me, but I think I have made amends in giving none but what
are approved and practicable, and fit either for a genteel or a noble
Table; and altho' I have omitted odd and fantastical messes, yet I
have set down a considerable number of receipts.

"The treatise is divided into ten parts: cookery contains above an
hundred receipts, pickles fifty, puddings above fifty, pastry above
forty, cakes forty, creams and jellies above forty, preserving an
hundred, made wines forty, cordial waters and powders above seventy,
medicines and salves above two hundred; in all near eight hundred.

"I have likewise presented you with schemes engraven on copper-plates
for the regular disposition or placing the dishes of provision on the
table according to the best manner, both for summer and winter, first
and second courses, &c.

"As for the receipts for medicines, salves, ointments, good in several
diseases, wounds, hurts, bruises, aches, pains, &c., which amount to
above two hundred, they are generally family receipts, that have never
been made publick; excellent in their kind, and approved remedies,
which have not been obtained by me without much difficulty;