THE ART OF COOKERY
heretofore published, under the following Heads, viz. ( followed by 3 vertical lists divided by 2 sets of double lines) Roasting, Boiling, Frying, Broiling, Baking, Fricasees, Puddings, Custards, (double line) Cakes, Cheese-cakes, Tarts, Pyes, Soops, Made-Wines, Jellies, Carving, (double line) Pickling, Preserving, Pastry, Collering, Confectionary, Creams, Ragoos, Braising, &. &. ALSO, A BILL OF FARE For every Month in the Year. WITH AN Alphabetical INDEX to the Whole: BEING A BOOK highly necessary for all FAMILIES, having the GROUNDS of COOKERY fully display'd therein. (a single horizontal line) by JOHN THACKER, COOK to the Honourable and Reverend the Dean and Chapter in DURHAM. (a double horizontal line) NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE: Printed by I. Thompson and Company. (a small single horizontal line) MDCCLV111.
FIRST EDITION. 1758. 8vo. 204 x 130mm. 2fep. Title Page on recto, verso blank. 4p Preface. 7p Index. (1)2-322. 32p letterpress Bills of Fare. 1p Errata slip on 1st fep, 2nd fep. Many in-text illustrations. Text block very lightly age-browned, Title page with water staining not affecting text, overall good condition. Full dark brown contemporary calf. Spine and front cover split but holding. Top and bottom of spine missing small pieces. Overall a very rare first edition. Bitting p458. Cagle p1019. MacLean pp140-141. Oxford p88. Provenance: 'Anne Williamson'. Later ink sig. to head of title. Mary Chadsey bookplate on front paste-down.
- An exhibition in Durham Cathedral’s multi award-winning museum experience, named 'Open Treasure', examines the role that food and drink played in the life of the cathedral and its inhabitants through the centuries. Focused on the famous Great Kitchen, the exhibition explores everything from medieval monastic rules on fasting to the kitchen’s present-day role as home of the treasures of St Cuthbert as part of 'Open Treasure'. Designed by architect John Lewyn, and built to provide daily meals for a community of 60 monks and their guests, construction of a large kitchen began in 1366 at the substantial cost of £180 17s 7d (more than £120,000 in today’s money). Featuring an innovative vaulted ceiling, the Prior’s Kitchen (now known as the Great Kitchen) provided the monks with an array of dishes prepared according to the 6th century ‘Rule of St Benedict’. Stating that meals should consist of “two kinds of cooked food”, the rule called upon monks to abstain from eating meat unless they were ill, and encouraged abstinence from drink despite allowing “half a bottle of wine a day” as sufficient for each monk. Although a large staff manned the kitchen on a daily basis, including dedicated ‘seethers’ to boil food, a ‘turnbroach’ to work the spit, and a ‘pastillator’ to prepare pastry, visiting royalty and noblemen would also bring their own cooks with them to prepare the immense feasts the cathedral was known for. Over the years the kitchen would play host to the cooks of the Earls of Northumberland, Warwick and Westmorland, the Duke of Exeter, the Archbishop of York and the Duke of Gloucester, later King Richard III. Catering both everyday meals and lavish banquets, the bustling kitchen saw a tremendous variety of dishes being prepared, with Cathedral records showing over 1000 suppliers providing an array of foodstuffs including sugar, ginger, saffron, currants, almonds, plums and grapes. Excavations of the kitchen in 2011 also revealed evidence of cattle, sheep, pig, goose and chicken bones; along with 21 different species of fish; oyster, cockle and mussel shells; as well as some more unusual examples including a frog and even a porpoise! Recipes for dishes served at the Cathedral over the centuries can be found in ‘The Art of Cookery’ written by John Thacker, who was cook to the Dean and Chapter between 1739 and 1758. To supplement his £10 annual income, he opened a cookery school in 1742 and began publishing recipes as a monthly magazine in 1746, with a complete book following in 1758. Containing over 650 recipes and drawings on how to present the dishes, Thacker’s cookbook includes many recipes you could easily recreate at home, including beef steak pie, chocolate cream, almond cakes, and ‘Queen’s Biscuits’. The Great Kitchen continued to function as a working kitchen up until the 1940s when practicality saw the preparation of food moved closer to the Deanery. Used to house the cathedral archive between 1951 and 1992, the kitchen was converted into the cathedral’s bookshop in 1997.
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Antiquarian category
ref number:
11122