THe Court and Country Cook:
GIVING New and Plain Directions How to Order all manner of ENTERTAINMENTS, And the best sort of the Most exquisite a-la-mode Ragoo's Yogether with NEW INSTRUCTIONS FOR CONFECTIONERS: SHEWING How to Preserve all sorts of Fruits, as well dry as liquid: Also, How to make divers Sugar-works, and other fine Pieces of Curiosity; How to set out a Desert, or Banquet of Sweet-meats to the best advantage; And, How to prepare several sorts of Liquors, that are proper for every Season of the Year. A WORK more especially necessary for Stewards, Clerks of the Kitchen, Confectioners, Butlers and other Officers, and also of great use in private Families. Faithfully translated out of French into English by J.K. London: Printed by W.Onley, for A. and J.Churchill, at the Black Swan in Pater-noster-row, and M.Gillyflower in Westminster-hall. 1702.
FIRST ENGLISH EDITION. 12mo. 1fep. Title page with double lined border. [1] 5p Preface. 3p Table of Entertainments. 7p A Table. 14p A General Table. [1] 4p Preface to the Reader. 2p Contents of instructions to Confectioners. 1p Contents of instructions for Liquors. 8p A Table. [1] 8 Engraved plates of set tables. 1-276. 1-130 New Instructions for Confectioners (with 2 in-text engravings on P126 & 128). 1-20 New Instructions for Liquors. 2feps. Original full dark calf boards with fillet design very slightly rubbed on corners. Sympathetically re-backed with dark brown calf, gilt lines with brown label with gilt writing. In good condition with some worming up to the end of the tables. Overall a good copy of the very rare first edition.
- This is a translation into English of Massialot’s two famous books. Firstly his best; 'Nouveau cuisinier royal et bourgeois' first appeared in French, anonymously, as a single volume in 1691, and was expanded to two in 1712, then three volumes in a revised edition of 1733-34. His lesser cookbook, 'Nouvelle instruction pour les confitures', also appeared anonymously in French, in 1692. In an article online by Douglas Muster titled ‘The Origins and History of Meringue’, he informs – “François Massialot, the first chef of Louis XIV (1638 - 1715), published the recipe for a beaten and baked egg white and sugar confection he called meringue in a cook book published in 1692. In his book, Massialot dubs, what he calls “... a little sugar-work, very pretty and very easy ... can be made in a moment ...”. As Massialot’s book was translated and published into English by 1702, strangely, the citation in the Oxford English Dictionary for the first use of the term meringue in English is 1706. Although Massialot’s recipe for a baked beaten egg white and sugar confection was not the earliest, it appears it is embedded firmly in French and English and phonetic variations in other languages; Spain: merengue. Germany: meringe. Italy: meringa” - 8th century. Massialot also had the first printed recipe for Burnt Cream (Creme Brulee). This translation of Massialot's important books is among the scarcest and hardest to find. There are no translated copies recorded in any of the great collections that have come up for auction.
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Antiquarian category
ref number:
11120