Читать книгу Good Things in England - A Practical Cookery Book for Everyday Use, Containing Traditional and Regional Recipes Suited to Modern Tastes - Florence White - Страница 4

One might be forgiven for thinking, in our age of celebrity chefs and glossy publications, that cook books are a relatively modern occurrence. However cook books have an incredibly long history, dating as far back as the first century CE.

The oldest collection of recipes that has survived in Europe is De Re Coquinaria, written in Latin. An early version was first compiled sometime in the first century and has often been attributed to the Roman gourmet, Marcus Gavius Apicius. An even earlier example (though less recognisable as a modern cook book), was also found in the Roman empire. This was the first known food writer – a Greek Sicilian named Archestratus, who lived in the fourth century BCE. He wrote a poem that spoke of using 'top quality and seasonal' ingredients, and insisted that flavours should not be masked by spices, herbs or other seasonings. Archestratus placed special importance on the simple preparation of fish.

Simplicity was abandoned and replaced by a culture of gastronomy as the Roman Empire developed however. By the time De Re Coquinaria was published, it contained 470 recipes calling for heavy use of spices and herbs. After a long interval, the first recipe books to be compiled in Europe since Late Antiquity started to appear in the thirteenth century. About a hundred are known to have survived, some fragmentary, from the age before printing. The earliest genuinely medieval recipes have been found in a Danish manuscript dating from around 1300, which in turn is a copy of older texts that date back to the early thirteenth century or perhaps earlier. Chinese cook books have also been found, dating to around this time – and one of the earliest surviving Chinese-language cookbooks; Hu Sihui's Important Principles of Food and Drink is believed to have been written in 1330.

German manuscripts are among the most numerous examples of cook books, among them being The Book of Good Food written in 1350 and Kitchen Mastery written in 1485. Two French collections are probably the most famous: Le Viandier ('The Provisioner') which was compiled in the late fourteenth century by Guillaume Tirel, and The Householder of Paris; a household book written by an anonymous middle class Parisian in the 1390s. Recipes originating in England include the earliest recorded recipe for ravioli, and the renowned Forme of Cury (mid-fourteenth century), compiled by the Master Cooks of King Richard II of England.

Cookbooks that serve as basic kitchen references (sometimes known as 'kitchen bibles') began to appear in the early modern period. They provided not just recipes but overall instructions for both kitchen technique and household management. Such books were written primarily for housewives and occasionally domestic servants, as opposed to professional cooks. Containing a veritable wealth of information, books such as The Joy of Cooking (USA), La Bonne Cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange (France), The Art of Cookery (UK), Il Cucchiaio D'Argento (Italy), and A Gift to Young Housewives (Russia) have served as records for entire national cuisines. With the advent of the printing press in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, numerous books were written on how to manage households and prepare food. In Holland and England especially, competition grew between the noble families as to who could prepare the most lavish banquet.

By the 1660s, cookery had progressed to an art form and good cooks were in demand. Many of these professional chefs took full advantage of the new trend, and published their own books detailing their recipes in competition with their rivals. By the nineteenth century, the Victorian preoccupation for domestic respectability brought about the emergence of cookery writing in its modern form. Although eclipsed in fame and regard by Isabella Beeton, the first modern cookery writer and compiler of recipes for the home was Eliza Acton. Her pioneering cookbook, Modern Cookery for Private Families (published in 1845), was aimed at the domestic reader rather than the professional cook or chef. This was an immensely influential book, and it established the format for modern writing about cookery.

The publication of Modern Cookery introduced the now-universal practice of listing the ingredients and suggested cooking times with each recipe. It also included the first recipe for Brussels sprouts. The book long survived its author, remaining in print until 1914 – functioning as an important influence on Isabella Beeton. Beeton went on to write and publish Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management in twenty-four monthly parts between 1857 and 1861. Of the 1,112 pages detailing domestic issues, over 900 contained recipes, such that another popular name for the volume is Mrs Beeton's Cookbook. Most of the recipes were illustrated with coloured engravings, and it was the first book to show recipes in a format that is still used today. In 1896, the American cook Fannie Farmer published her illustrious work, The Boston Cooking School Cookbook, which contained some 1,849 recipes.

A good store of vintage cook books should be a kitchen staple for any creative cook. And as such, this series provides a collection of works, designed to instruct, inform and entertain the modern-day reader on times, peoples and foods of the past. Today, the simple pleasures of practical household skills (so wonderfully demonstrated in these books) have been all but forgotten. Now, it's time to get back to basics. This series will take the reader back to the golden age of practical skills; an age where making and mending, cooking and preserving, brewing and bottling, were all done within the home.

The Vintage Cookery Books series hopes to bring old wisdom and classic techniques back to life, as we have so much to learn from 'the old ways' of cooking. Not only can these books provide a fascinating window into past societies, cultures and every-day life, but they also let us actively delve into our own history – with a taste of what, how and when, people ate, drank, and socialised. Enjoy.