E. KIDDER'S RECEIPTS OF Pastry AND Cookery.
For the Use of his Scholars. Who teaches at his School in St Martins le Grand; On. Mondays, Tuesdays & Wednesdays, In the Afternoon, ALSO On Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays, In the Afternoon, at his School next to Furnivals Inn in Holburn. Ladies may be taught at their own Houses.
8vo. The 1st edition, 2nd issue of 1721. 1fep. Engraved portrait frontispiece by Robert Shephard. Title page, 41 leaves with the cursive script engraved on rectos only with versos blank. (A costly and rarely used process). Last two leaves with 'The Order for Bills of Fare' and the Index. 1fep. Full brown speckled sheep binding, with raised bands on spine with gilt lines and green label with gilt lettering. Internally nice and clean, with a small light oily fingerprint on the bottom corner of the title page (not affecting the text).
- In reality this is not a printed book but rather a book of engravings. The beautifully laid out sheets of engraved scripted recipes, (with every verso blank) the elegant title page, the sculpted looking frontispiece, go towards making this one of the most handsome books, not only in cookery but any category. The portrait of Kidder is 'un-wigged', showing his natural hair. Other later editions have Kidder with wig and 8 engraved plates that were also added, (see item 11290 below). Also in later editions, pagination and recipe numbers vary greatly. This is all explained by the fact that Kidder's book only came about after his students were issued with the recipe sheets as their daily lessons progressed during their cookery course. It appears from the later editions of the book, Kidder's lessons were developed and added to, though the actual recipes themselves stayed the same. Another point of interest in the title pages of later editions, is the changing location addresses of Kidder's schools, presumably as his student numbers grew. Because of these haphazard factors, the work is bibliographically complex. Thankfully, it is greatly helped by the very good research of Peter Targett in the UK & Simon Varey in the US, whose joint study is published in Petit Propos Culinaires, Vols # 32 & 39. The study verifies this edition is complete as well as compelling evidence of all the other various editions and their cookery school locations. Collectors want the later copies with the eight engraved plates (3 folding) of patterns and ornamental designs for pies and pastries. This is understandable, but the very early editions like this one, without the plates but never the less complete, are rarer still.
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Antiquarian category
ref number:
10966