WOMEN ADVISING WOMEN

Advice Books, Manuals and Journals for Women, 1450-1837

Part 6: Sources from the Brotherton Library, University of Leeds

Editorial Introduction by C. Anne Wilson

Books from the collections of Blanche Leigh and John Preston, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds.

Blanche Leigh and John Preston did not limit themselves to the narrowest definition of cookery when they collected their ‘cookery books’ (presented later to the University Library). They included items on other aspects of home life: the garden and its crops; servants and their duties; domestic medicine and home-made remedies; advice on social etiquette, and cosmetics. The cookery books themselves often hold extra material, such as guidance on marketing, menu-planning, brewing and wine-making, all of value to women with a household role, whether as mistress or servant.

Certain books in Women Advising Women, Part 6 were written by men for men; but these serve to point up the contemporary role of women. Two fifteenth-century cookery-books, the earliest, title, contains manuscript recipe collections written by and for male cooks serving late medieval aristocratic households, where all food preparation and most domestic tasks (except laundry and childcare) were carried out by men and boys. Lower down the social scale women were responsible for meal-making of a simpler kind, but they could not write, so initiated their daughters into basic cookery by word of mouth.

Andrew Boorde’s Dyetary of helth is likewise addressed mainly to male readers, but it gives insights into beliefs about foodstuffs widely held in Tudor times. But Thomas Tusser, whose Five hundredth pointes of good husbandry (expanded from an earlier One hundredth pointes) offers month by month advice to the yeoman farmer, puts him into the context of his household, and also reminds his wife of seasonal tasks.

During the sixteenth century members of the gentry, successful merchants, lawyers and courtiers, were building country houses for their families. Produce from their estates was processed in the bakehouse, the dairy and other domestic offices, to feed family and servants. The grandest houses retained their stewards and men-cooks; but in the others the lady of the house had overall surveillance of the provisioning of the household. She was supported by the housekeeper, whose post was still relatively new in the 1550’s.

Everyday cookery was the responsibility of the cook. But the mistress took over the preparation of ‘banquetting stuffe’, the decorative sugared sweetmeats and fruit preserves offered at the ‘banquet’ (final dessert course). She also prepared and administered home-made remedies.

Female literacy did not extend far down the social scale in Elizabethan and Jacobean times. The earliest printed books addressed to women were intended for those in well-to-do families, and provided recipes for sweetmeats, medicines, and, sometimes, the cookery of choice dishes. A daily exercise for ladies and gentlewomen (Murrell) and A closet for ladies and gentlewomen both contain sweetmeats, preserves and medical recipes. Such books were reissued over a long period. The 1644 Closet has the same text as the 1609 edition, but the 1627 copy reproduced here is a hybrid, with sections on cookery and ‘sweet powders and oyntments’ from Sir Hugh Plat’s Delightes for ladies bound in front, and the Closet’s extensive medical section much curtailed.

The sources of the printed recipes were personal notebooks. Girls in gentry families compiled such books when young from their mothers’ and older friends’ recipes, and added to them through their married lives. Queen Henrietta Maria herself apparently collected recipes from named donors in the Court circle, published by a royalist supporter in 1655 as The Queen’s closet opened. Sometimes the personal recipe collections were large enough to be published as separate works, like the two volumes ascribed to Elizabeth Grey, Countess of Kent, and the separate medical and cookery books of Sir Kenelm Digby, also in the royal circle.

Anne Blencowe kept a simpler cookery notebook later in the century; while Lady Grizel Baillies’s manual gives a wider conspectus of how her Scottish household was organised. For the role of women at mealtimes and other events, Rules of civility (Courtin) provided a guide. The daughters of the upwardly mobile could attend cookery schools in London, such as that of Mary Tillinghast, who published her recipes for cakes and biscuits.

The strong French influence on English Court cuisine after 1660 introduced ragoos, olios and other made dishes developed by cooks of the French aristocracy. English translations of their books followed (eg Massialot). Some of that influence would work its way into recipes in the books compiled by English women cooks through the eighteenth century.

Female literacy was increasing in Britain, and with it the trend for keeping cookery notebooks, and buying printed versions, spread to the lesser country gentry, and to middle-ranking families in towns. Mary Kettilby had collected her recipes from ‘very Curious and Delicate Housewives’, and believed they offered ‘a splendid frugality’ – suggesting a readership that was genteel, but not wealthy. For the enlarged second edition, 1719, she received further receipts from ladies eager to contribute to her book.

Some books were reprinted frequently over long periods of time. Mary Eales’ Receipts, published in 1718, was unchanged except for a few extra recipes when reprinted as The complete confectioner in 1733, and further editions appeared under each title over the next fifty years.

Four books were reissued very frequently. There were eighteen editions, 1727-1773, of E Smith, The compleat housewife. H Glasse, The art of cookery, 1747 (including many receipes from Smith) went through numerous editions up to 1843. E Raffald, The experienced English housekeeper, 1769, reached its twelfth edition in 1799, with several more thereafter. E M Rundell, New system of domestic cookery, 1806, was still being reissued in its revised version in the 1860s. The longevity of certain individual recipes in these books helped to bed them down as traditional English dishes. Women often copied them into their own notebooks, and they were adopted as family recipes.

There was no copyright in recipes, and some authors reproduced large numbers from earlier printed books, eg S Jackson’s borrowings in The director from E Moxon, English housewifery, fourth edition. M Cole, The lady’s complete guide, named many of her sources, but most other writers published plagiarised material without acknowledgement.

C Carter’s Compleat city and country cook was compiled ‘for the mistress of the house or housekeeper’, and in the earlier eighteenth century one or both would have been the readers. S Harrison’s Housekeeper’s pocketbook, [1733] was ‘to inform such House-keepers as are not in the highest rank of Fortune how to Eat, or Entertain Company, in the most elegant manner at a small Expense.’ R Bradley wrote The country housewife for families of country squires and farmers.

Hannah Glasse states in The art of cookery her intention to ‘Instruct the lower Sort’, explaining that ‘Every Servant who can read will be capable of making a tolerable good Cook’. But the subscribers to her book were mainly females of middling rank, who would have passed on her recipes to their cooks. Glasse’s Servants directory is for housekeepers, with information about cleaning materials as well as details of servants’ duties. Madame Johnson’s present was purchased by the mistress and given to the servant. In addition to cookery, it contains an English dictionary, advice on letter-writing and arithmetic, and rules for moral conduct. Moral advice is also prominent in E Haywood, New present for a servant-maid.

Authors of cookery books from the 1750s onwards were mostly women who themselves had been in service. Several claimed that their books could ‘be understood by the meanest capacity’ (Raffald). A growing readership in the provinces led to the publication of cookery books outside London, such as E Moxon, English housewifery, c.1741 and many later editions, in Leeds; A Peckham, The complete English cook, 1767 and other editions until the 1790s, also in Leeds; and H Robertson, Young ladies school of arts, 1761, and several more editions in both Edinburgh and York. Mrs Frazer, The practice of cookery, 1791 and later editions, taught in a cookery school in Edinburgh; P Haslehurst, The family friend, claimed twenty years as ‘instructor of young persons’ in Sheffield.

As female literacy increased, so small books were published to appeal to housewives in lower-income families, as well as to servants. Examples are Bradshaw’s valuable family jewel; L Honeywood, The cook’s pocket companion; and E Price, The new book of cookery, each costing one shilling.

The larger, more expensive books were shared between mistress and servants. Many now included table-plans, often in the form of circles or ovals inscribed with named dishes, placed on the page in their intended position. The 150 bills of fare in C Mason, The ladies assistant, 1775 are printed directly upon the page, but arranged in similar order. Directions for marketing and monthly lists of produce in season are usually present in these books too, as aids to cooks and housekeepers.

The books compiled by, or for, the male cooks Collingwood, Farley, Henderson and Simpson around 1800 were intended for women servants, as is clear from prefaces or other clues. W Kitchener, Housekeeper’s ledger is just that: a blank ruled account-book, with introduction attacking feckless spending and urging care in choice of tradesmen.

Books on gardens and their produce include W Lawson’s Country housewife’s garden, first published in 1618, J Evelyn’s Acetaria, two books by J Laurence, and R Bradley’s Survey. Adam’s luxury and Eve’s cookery and R Bradley, Country housewife demonstrate both growing and cooking aspects. Kitchen-gardens receive substantial coverage in other books, including The complete family piece and M Bradley’s British housewife.

Medical remedies are in several seventeenth-century books already mentioned, and form sections of others, eg A book of fruits and flowers, 1653, E Smith’s Compleat housewife, and The complete family piece. They come from family collections, and incorporate old recipes already re-copied many times. In the mid-eighteenth century, remedies were usually omitted; and those in later cookery books were taken from publications by contemporary physicians, especially W Buchan, Domestic medicine, 1769.

N Culpeper, English physician, enlarging his earlier, well-known herbal, J Meyrick, New family herbal, and J Hill, Family herbal (an illustrated version of his Useful family herbal, c.1750) represent herbal medicine; while Hill’s Virtues of honey extols its medicinal usages. S Paulli, 1746 discusses tea, coffee and chocolate; and J Davies, Innkeeper and butler’s guide, 1808, provides recipes for British alcoholic beverages.

Household recipes for cleansers, dyes, ink, cosmetic, and much more appear in M E Rundell’s New family receipt book, and M Holland’s, Modern family receipt book. Cosmetic recipes are in The toilet of Flora (translated from French); while Robertson’s Young ladies school of arts advises on materials for painting, handwork and other pastimes of gentlemen’s daughters, as well as cookery. In F B Parkes, Domestic duties every facet of household management in the 1820s is discussed by an older woman advising a newly-married one.

During the scarcity years of the late eighteenth century, cookery books began to include charitable provision for the poor. E Melroe, An economical and new method of cookery demonstrates the emphasis then placed upon types of soup now recognised to contain very little nourishment. W Cobbett wrote Cottage economy, 1822, for a whole class of poor people, families of low-paid agricultural workers, to help them make the most of available foodstuffs.

Finally, a few ‘oddities’ deserve special mention. W King, Art of cookery (imitating Horace’s Ars poetica) is a Latin poem, with translation. D Defoe, Family instructor gives moral exemplars for family members; and The history of Mary Wood is a moral tale, with a sad ending. E Cromwell, Court and kitchen is a cookery book (almost certainly not hers) published by a royalist, whose long introduction attacks the meanness of Cromwellian housekeeping. Many other cookery books include various kinds of additional information. But I Moore, Useful and entertaining family miscellany contains, uniquely, ‘The pleasing songster’, a collection of verses complete with music.

BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING

D Attar, A bibliography of household books published in Britain, 1800-1914, London, Prospect, 1987

J J Hecht, The domestic servant in eighteenth-century England, London, 1980

M Lane, Jane Austen and food, London, Hambledon, 1995

G Lehmann, The British housewife: cookery books, cooking and society in eighteenth-century Britain, Totnes, Prospect, 2003

P A Sambrook & P Brears, eds, The country house kitchen, Stroud, Sutton, 1996

C A Wilson, ed, The country house kitchen garden, Stroud, Sutton, 1998

H Woolley, The gentlewomans companion, 1675, new edition, Totnes, Prospect, 2001

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