Court Cookery: or the Compleat English COOK.
Containing the Choicest and Newest RECEIPTS FOR MAKING Soops, Pottages, Fricasseys, Harshes, Farces, Ragoo's, Cullises, Sauces, Forc'd-Meats, and Souses: With various Ways of Dressing most Sorts of Flesh, Fish, and Fowl, Wild, and Tame; with the best Methods of Potting, Collaring and Pickling. AS LIKEWISE Of Pastes, Pies, Pasties, Patties, Puddings, Tansies, Biskets, Creams, Cheesecakes, Florentines, Cakes, Jellies, Sillabubs and Custards. ALSO Of Candying and Preserving: With a Bill of Fare for every Month in the Year, and the latest Improvements in Cookery, Pastry, &c. By R. Smith, Cook (under Mr. Lamb) to King William, as also to the Dukes of Buckingham, Ormond, D'Aumone (the French Ambassador) and others of the Nobility and Gentry. The Second Edition, with large Additions. LONDON: Printed for T. Wotton, at the Three-Daggers in Fleet-Street. M.DCC.XXV.
8vo. 1fep. Title page with double line border. [1] 6p To the Nobility and Gentry with printers device at the top of the page. 1+2-212. 213-218 Bills of Fare. 14p Index. 1fep. Text and pages very slightly age browned at the edges but overall nice, clean and crisp. Full dark brown calf original boards with a lovely patina. The spine rebound in sympathetic dark brown calf with raised bands, blind-tooled lines, with a dark green label with gilt letters and lines. With the date 1725 in gilt at the bottom of the spine. overall a very nice copy with the bookplate of Mary Chadsey.
- In the Preface, Robert Smith, who worked under Patrick Lamb in the kitchens of King William states he knew most of Lamb’s receipts and methods of dressings; yet several of those receipts now in Lamb’s famous cookery book ‘Royal Cookery’ were never made or practised by him. He further states that other receipts are extreme [sic] defective and imperfect, and made up of ingredients unknown to him; he further claims they were more calculated at the purses, than the ‘gout’ of the guests. Strong criticism of a fellow chef indeed.! A riposte from Lamb is not recorded. A search of Wikipedia highlights an interesting point --- according to legend, the macaroon was invented in an Italian monastery in 1792. Later, two Carmelite nuns, hiding in the town of Nancy during the French Revolution, baked and sold macaroons to cover their expenses. They became known as the "Macaroon Sisters." The cookie recipe was supposedly passed on to the Jewish community in France, who subsequently made it a staple of Passover baking --- However, recipes for macaroons (also spelled "mackaroon" "maccaroon" and "mackaroom") appear in 1724, the date of this edition of Smith's ‘Court Cookery. A scarce and interesting book.
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Antiquarian category
ref number:
11034