New Book of Cookery, A.
Remarkable Survival
[Cookbooks]. Smith, A. Mrs. A New Book of Cookery; Or, every woman a perfect cook; containing a very great variety of approved recipes in all the branches of cookery and confectionary, viz. marketing, roasting, boiling…, potting, candying, collaring, English wines. To which is added, directions for clear starching and the ladie’s toilet…Likewise a collection of family physical recipes…the whole calculated to assist the prudent housewife in furnishing the cheapest and most elegant set of dishes in the various department of cookery, and to instruct ladies in many other particulars of great importance. London: printed in the year 1787.
8vo.; contemporary ownership signature of Jane Barstow; contemporary blue wrappers, heavily worn. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
Second edition of this collection of recipes and household hints; according to ESTC, the first edition was published in 1781. The title page notes that this book was “Written by Mrs. A. Smith, of Stafford, who has been a House-keeper in several Noble Families many Years.” ESTC locates one copy of the first edition at Leeds; and OCLC records one copy of the second edition at the Schlesinger Library. Maclean 133; not in Cagle. Maclean suggests that Smith might be the same Alice Smith who published The Art of Cookery; or, the Compleat House-Wife (1758), and ESTC records a Mrs. Alice Smith as authoring The Family Companion (1754), but the thirty year gap in publication – plus the commonness of the name Smith – renders this theory unlikely. Maclean also compares the title page of this book to one in a cookbook published by Alex. Hogg under the name “Elizabeth Price of Berkeley Square,” circa 1760. However, the fact that Hogg was not in business before 1775, and that he had a reputation as a plagiarizer, suggests Elizabeth Price’s book is likely to have been published after Smith’s book.
In her address, “To the Public,” Smith explains her pride in her own recipes, cooking knowledge and economy: “All of which deservedly claim the attention of the ladies in general, and of maid-servants in particular who, by a careful perusal of the following sheets, I hope will soon become perfectly accomplished in the useful art of cookery” (p. 2).
In her “Directions for Marketing” section, Smith includes tips like, “How to choose Ham/put a knife under the bone that sticks out of the ham, and if it comes out clean, and has a pretty good flavour, it is sweet; if much smeared and dull, it is tainted and rusty” (p. 5). She follows this section with those on how to roast, boil, or fry foods – including such delights as diverse as lampreys, eels and pancakes – as well as preparing baked goods and gravies. On page 122 she begins a chapter titled, “The art of making wines, from fruits, flowers, and herbs, all the native growth of Great Britain, particularly of grapes, gooseberries, currants…with a succinct account of their medicinal virtues…” She claims that wines made from raspberries, for example, will “cleanse the blood and prevent pestilential air, comfort the heart, ease pains in the stomach, dispel gross vapors from the brain, cause a free breathing, by removing obstructions from the lungs, and are successfully taken in apoplexies” (p. 129). This is followed by a section titled, “The Toilet of Flora,” a section on homemade cosmetics recipes.
In the chapter, “The good wife’s daily companion: or, the family instructor in the knowledge of medicine,” she provides an alphabetical list of afflictions – starting with colds, colic and consumption – and also suggests topical solutions for personal maintenance like keeping the hair clean: “Take two handfuls of rosemary and boil it in a quart of spring water, till it comes to a pint, and let it be covered, then strain it out and keep it. Every morning when you comb your head, dip the spunge [sic] in the water and rub your hair, and it will keep it clean and preserve it, for it is very good for the brain
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