The English Cookery Book

Description

Leeds Symposium

The English Cookery Book

Historical Essays, edited by Eileen White

The study of early cookery books can tell the reader much more than just the history of food, or of one particular recipe. As the essays in the collection demonstrate, cookery books can be the source of fascinating information about a whole range of issues, from the use of language (Peter Meredith); the way that illustrations may be deployed for instructional purposes (Ivan Day); or how social change is reflected on the dining-tables of the nation (Eileen White and Valerie Mars). In addition, there are two excellent studies of individual books and their makers (Malcolm Thick and Laura Mason) which underline the immense value of the cookery collections housed in the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds.This volume is the twelfth of the series ‘Food and Society’, consisting of papers presented to the Leeds Symposium on Food History.There are seven essays: An Introduction to the Cookery Book Collection in The Brotherton Library, by C. Anne Wilson The Language of Medieval Cookery, by Peter Meredith A Close Look at the Composition of Sir Hugh Plat’s Delightes for Ladies, by Malcolm Thick Domestic English Cookery and Cookery Books, 1575-1675, by Eileen White Illustrations in British Cookery Books 1621-1820, by Ivan Day William Alexis Jarrin and The Italian Confectioner, by Laura Mason Beyond Beeton: some 19th-Century Cookery and Household Books in the Brotherton Library, by Valerie Mars

A PDF of the preliminary and introductory matter of The English Cookery Book and of the text of the first essay in the book, ‘An Introduction to the Cookery Book Collection in The Brotherton Library’, by C. Anne Wilson