Restoration London: Everyday Life in London 1660-1670 by Liza Picard

Author:Liza Picard [Picard, Liza]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2014-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

Cookery books

Any gentle reader who has honoured me by looking at the endnotes will have seen that I have drawn on various contemporary sources. Archdale Palmer’s book is a splendid example of the collection of household hints collected and written down, and kept for handy reference in a kitchen drawer, that we have all made, or at least meant to make. He notes the source of every recipe, and the date when he got it. Many relate to those all-important horses, and to such male concerns as how to clean riding boots; but he gives equal care to his daughter’s way of ‘washing Ribbands cleane’ (in castle [castile] soap and fuller’s earth) and his sister’s ‘cure for ye stone’ (based on woodlice). Scattered through these invaluable notes are cooking recipes. Obviously Palmer saw his book as a family treasure, to be passed down to future generations in his family. Many families must have possessed such books. Perhaps some of them survive, in dusty cupboards, still.

The seventeenth-century housewife did not have to rely solely on family records. This was the golden age of ‘conduct books’, which included chapters on home-made ‘simples’ (medicines), cosmetics, sweetmeats and beverages, alcoholic and otherwise, as well as everyday cooking. Hannah Wolley was not alone in the field, but she was perhaps the first to identify an insatiable market for such ‘how to do it’ books. The level of skill she expected was high. For instance, few modern housewives would be familiar with the use of an alembic, for distilling, let alone have basic diagnostic knowledge. The format remained unchanged for 200 years; Isabella Beeton’s book followed just the same lines, even to the seasonal menus and the lists of duties for servants. Nowadays we may have cookery books in the kitchen, and medical advice books in the bathroom; enthusiasts may have books on making wine and beer, somewhere. Hannah Wolley crammed all this into each of a series of books – Guide to the Female Sex, The Ladies Delight, The Accomplished Ladies Delight, The Cook’s Guide and The Queen-like Closet – all going into many reprints.

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