Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine

who had to do with these matters in days of yore; and in both cases an inquirer finds that he has to turn from the vain sea

ively limited information which we get upon this subject from the pages of Lacroix, the paucity of material is not confined to ourselves. The destruction and disappearance of such

he kitchen, and to prepare the whole carcase, some parts in one way and some in another. We i

resentations in the “Archaeological Album,” the “Penny Magazine” for 1836, and Lacroix [Footnote: “Moeurs, Usages et Costumes au Moyen Age,” 1872, pp 166, 170, 177]. Th

g to the Abbey of St. Albans. They consist of two illustrations — one of Master Robert, cook to the abbey, as elsewhere noticed, accompanied by his wife — unique relic of its kind; the other a view of a small apartment with dressers and shelves, and with plates and accessories hung round, in which a cook, perhaps the identical Master Robert aforesaid, is

bert pluc

bert pluc

ssuing atthe holes, each about seven inches in diameter, which run round the roof. As Lamb said of his Essays, that they were all Preface, so this kitchen is all chimney. It is stated that the kitchen at Glastonbury Abbey was constructed on the same mod

Pope wrote a portion of his tr

Dutchmen, who kept the art secret. Lysons states that the place where the industry was carried on bo

n, with the old appellations retained as usual, was the universal machinery for baking, and was placed on the Branderi, an iron frame whic

y effaced. It is yet to be seen here and there in out-of-the-way corners and places; and in India they use one constructed

es deep and eighteen inches across, with a tight-fitting, convex lid. It was provided with three legs. The kail-pot, as it was called, was used for cooking pies, and was buried bodil

that this utensil was originally employed for

tar, Indian, and other communities, we see no such rudimentary substitute for a grate, but merely two uprights and a horizontal rest, supporting a chain; and in the illustration to the thirteenth or fourteent

be thought to have been the germ of the later-day

sculpture of the end of the fourteenth century, where two women are seated on either side, engaged in

the tools and implements which are required to carry on the work: pots, tripods for the kettle, trenchers, pestles, mortars, hatchets, hooks, saucepans, cauldrons, pails, gridirons, knives, and so on. The he

of Johannes de Garlandia (early thirteenth century), who states that it grew in his own garden at Paris. Garlic, or gar-leac (in the same way as the onion is called yn-leac

were sage, parsley, pepper, and oil, with a little salt. Green geese were eaten with raisin

trand, regarded it as a nuisance.” This was about the middle of the thirteenth century. It may be a mite contributed to our knowledge of early household economy to mention, by the way, that in the supernatural tale of the “Smith and his Dame” (sixteenth century) “a quarter of coal” occurs. The smith lays it on the fire all

r Shooes and her Petticoat, groaps for the tinder box, where after a conflict between the steele and the stone, she begets a spark, at last the Candle lights on his Match; then upon an old rott

s;” and under September, wood and coals are mentioned together.

s more readily to come within reach of the fire. The writer of this narrative, which is printed in the “Philosophical Transactions,” considered that the vessel might be of Roman workman-ship; as he states that on the handle was stamped a name, C. ARAT., wh

. As to the spit itself, it became a showy article of plate, when the fashion arose of serving up the meat upon it in the hall; and the tenure by which Finchingfield in Essex was held in c

land, Yorkshire, and Lincolnshire, from the last of which the Pilgrims carried it across the Atlantic, where it is a current Americanism, not for one bite, but as many as you please, which is, in fact, the modern provincial interpretation of the phrase,

vj. dozen. Item, new napkins vj. dozen.” This entry may or may not warrant a conclusion that the family bought that quantity at a ti

the kitchen only kept pace with the bed-chamber and the dining-hall, the dairy and the laundry, the stable and the out-buildings. An extensive nomenclature was steadily growing up, and the Latin, old French, and Saxon terms were giving way on

cious metals, afforded abundant scope for the fancy of the artist, even in the remote days when the material for it came from the timber-dealer, and sets

on trenchers and banqueting dishes. The author of “Our English Home” alludes to a very curious set, painted in subjec

ds:—“Even so the gentlemanly serving-man, whose life and manners doth equal his birth and bringing up, scorneth the society of these sots, or to place a dish where they give a trencher”; and speaking of the passion of people for raising themselves

ual for a couple thus seated together to eat from one trencher, more particularly if the relations between them were of an intimate nature, or, again, if it were the master and mistress of the establishment. Walpole relates that so late as the m

s Majesty Edward III.; and even so late as the seventeeth century, Coryat, who employed one after his visit to Italy, was nicknamed “Furcifer.” The two-pronged implement long outlived Coryat; and it is to be seen in cutlers’ signs even down to our day. The old desser

to this part of the theme:—“For us in the country,” says he, “when we have washed our hands after no foul work, no

oon, knife, and fork. In another of the Duke of Burgundy, sixty years later (1420), knives and other implements occur, but no fork. The cutlery is described here

ey have ladles, but not spoons. The universality of broths and semi-liquid substances, as well as the commencement of a taste for learned gravies, prompted a recourse to new expedients for communicating between the platter and the mouth; and some person of genius saw how the difficulty might be sol

, in 1846, Mr. Westman published “The Spoon: Primitive, Egyptian, Roman,

t day. Nothing is said of forks. But in the same account, under February 1st, 1500-1, one Mistress Brent receives 12s. (and a book, which cost the king 5s. more) for a silver fork weighing three ounces. In Newbery’s “Dives Pragmaticus,”

ewers, of tin, p

f copper, fine

and kettles, s

dishes, saucers a

rs, towels an

pans, and fine p

milk, and trim

scummers, and

ans, pot-h

ire-forks, tongs, t

flaskets, mortars

Elizabethan kitchen, to the fittings of Shakespeare’s, or rather of his father’s. A good idea of the character and resources of a nobleman’s or wealthy gentleman’s kitchen at the end of the sixteenth and

ace pan

eef k

d small

ing from sixteen to

with bowed or

pans wi

bras

ping

el or baki

mortar an

dir

lad

en sc

rat

pper

tard-

ar

alt

ron

n r

in

ho

spend the kettle or

and round, and

ar

oo

(wet and dry) a

boards fo

ng tub f

tle t

ce cu

t for

rou

and othe

ewter, brass, and other vess

f nine sizes (f

r rabbits. — S

— Silver

— Silver

. — Silver

Silver f

ef-p

oves an

sort of

llen

er bak

es of

kil

ran

dding

pping

ple c

ons to make

ss po

knives. — Fo

pes. — For S

s. — For S

nd hogsheads. Table knives, forks, spoons, and drinki

d a Dripping-pan would do well, if well furnished.” Flecknoe, again, in his character of a “Miserable old Gentlewoman,” inserted among his “Enigmatical Charac

goldsmith’s work; but its interest for us is local, and does not lend itself to change of material and neighbourhood. The habits of the poor and middle classes are apt to awaken a keener curiosity in our minds from the comparatively slender information which has come to us upon them; and as in the case of the maser, the laver which was employed in humble circles for washing the hands before and after a

persons introduced and interrogated. He is asked what his profession is worth to the community; and he replies that without him people would have to eat their greens and flesh ra

of sweets, a scullion or swiller (who is otherwise described as a quistron), and knaves,

n, a drinking bowl, a saucer, and a spoon. The kitchen, in short, comprised within its boundaries a far larger variety of domestic requisites of all kinds than its modern representative, which deals with an external machinery so totally changed. The ancient Court of England was so differently constituted from the present, and so many offices which sprang out of the feudal system have fallen into desuetude, that it requires a considerable effort to imagine a condition of things, where the master-cook of our lord the king was a personage of high rank and extended possessions. How early the functions of cook and the property attached to the position were separated, and the tenure of the land made dependent on a nominal ceremony, is not quite clear. Warner thinks that it was in the Conqueror’s time; but at any rate, in that of Henry II. the husband of the heiress o

acilities for transit, and an absence of trading centres. These steward-ships, butler-ships, and cook-ships, in the hands of the most trusted vassals of the Crown, constituted a rudimentary vehicle for in-gathering the dues of all kinds renderable by the king’s tenants; and as an administrative scheme gradually unfolded itself, they became titular and honorary, like o

erly belonged to the Abbey, and contains a list of its benefactors, with their gifts. It does not appear that Master Robert, cook to Abbot Thomas, was the donor of any land or money; but, in consideration of his long and faithful services, his soul was to be praye

Robert

Robert

oked, is the character of the ancient buttery, and the quick transition which its functi

see that no opportunity was neglected of supplying, from the nearest port, or market town, or fair, if his employer resided in the country, all the necessaries for the departments under his control. We are apt to reg

but was hired for the occasion, which may augur the general preference for boiled and fried meats. Sometimes it appears that any lad passing by, or in want of temporary

te, iiijd.“ and this was when the mayor of the borough dined with the prior. A royal personage gave, of course, more. The

s cup in my tim

nd spit have I both

n, was supplan

introduces himself to a monastery, and is sent by the unsuspecting prior