Kidder.   Edward     A later edition with the 8 plates.
E. KIDDER'S RECEIPTS OF PASTRY AND COOKERY.
For the Use of his Scholars. Who teaches at his School in Queen Street; near St. Thomas Apostles 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. 190 x 110 mm 1 fep. [1] Frontispiece portrait by Robert Sheppard of the author in wig. Title page well laid out and enclosed within a lined border (Essentially an advertisement for Kidder's schools). 52 leaves, entirely engraved throughout on recto pages with versos blank. 8 engraved plates (three folding) of patterns and ornamental designs for pies and pastries. Original 1 fep. Contemporary paneled calf, covers blind tooled, with a margin surrounding the central panel painted and speckled. Nicely re-backed. Occasional light foxing or staining to text. Overall fine condition.
- Pastry Chef Edward Kidder - circa 1665/6-1739, opened his first pie shop in the Cheapside area of London. Soon he was known throughout the city for his delicious pastries, from rich lamb pies to savoury chicken to sweet custard tarts. He eventually opened a second location, and by all accounts was a highly successful businessman when he began to demonstrate his pie making techniques for wealthy ladies by opening a popular pastry school in London. His obituary in the London Magazine claiming that he "taught near 6000 Ladies the Art of Pastry." His school had several different locations in the first half of the 1700's, with the various addresses resulting in title-page variants on the different versions of his published book of Pastry and Cookery. Kidder's first edition was printed 1720/21, but there is manuscript evidence that the schools started at least as early as the 1700's. An engraved, printed title-page at the Brotherton Library of Leeds University of MS 75, is inscribed ‘London 1702’, and is followed by 71 folios of manuscript recipes similar to, if not verbatim copies of, the recipes which appear in the published Kidder texts. [Ref: The Recipes Project online] The title on this copy lists Kidder's address as "Queen Street, near St. Thomas Apostles," his location from around 1723 onwards. Although Kidder ran a pastry school, his recipes covered the whole range of soups, salads, meat, fish, poultry, sauces, and jellies, as well as pies and tarts. His recipes were repeatedly plagiarized throughout the eighteenth century, yet Kidder seems not to have plagiarized recipes himself. He probably taught his students to make established favourites, so even if his Receipts may not be especially inventive, it is a valuable record of 170 standard English dishes of the day, accompanied by attractive designs for pie shapes and decorations. The first recipe for puff pastry identical to the standard commercial product of today to appear in print is Kidder's. (ODNB). Kidder gave his students blank notebooks bound with a printed pre-title page from his cookbook. The students then copied his later cookbook text into these notebooks as their lessons progressed. There are five quite similar in content, hand written Kidder manuscripts by different ladies in five separate institutional collections. Three can be found online at the Universities of Pennsylvania, Chicago and Indiana's Lilly Library. An extremely scarce, handsome and an all-together intriguing book. ESTC T92424; Cagle 793; Axford, p. 124; Bitting, p. 259; Craig, p. 51; MacLean, p. 82; Oxford, p. 71.

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ref number: 11290