A Noble Boke Off Cookry
FFOR A PRYNCE HOUSSOLDE OR ENY OTHER ESTATELY HOUSSOLDE. REPRINTED VERBATIM FROM A RARE MS. IN THE HOLKHAM COLLECTION EDITED BY MRS. ALEXANDER NAPIER. LONDON: ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1882.
4to. Half title. Title Page. (v-xiii) (1-136) 3fep. Nicely bound in half tan calf with marbled boards. Plain spine with red label with gilt lines and lettering. Excellent condition externally and internally with minimal staining. Printed on large paper with wide margins and uncut edges. There is a very light round red library stamp (about the size of a 5p piece) on the Title page, but not affecting the text.
- This very nice book is transcribed from a manuscript in the Holkham Collection and is dated; circa 1467. Those recipes, in turn, closely resemble recipes in another famous cookery manuscript called the 'Forme of Cury' compiled about 1390. There is also on p.3. a printing of an aquatint engraving of the 'Peacock Feast' On Nov. 8th 1791, a bookseller was sued by the engraver of the 'Peacock Feast' for pirating the plate without permission. That aquatint plate was used to embellish a book called 'Antiquitates Culinaria' also about very old cookery manuscripts recording ancient Kingly Feasts. The original etching was done from a representation of a Saxon Feast on an ancient brass in St Margaret's Church, King's Lyn. It is also nice to find it as a head-piece, on p3. of this copy. On p.134, this book has an interesting glossary of obsolete medieval culinary words to be found in the 'Noble Boke of Cookery. A fascinating glimpse of English gastronomic history.
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Antiquarian category
ref number:
10925