Contents The book describes how to make savoury dishes including "Bisks, Farces, forc'd Meats, Marinades, Olio's, Puptons, Ragoos, Sauces, Soops, Pottages". Pastries include
biscuits,
cakes,
custards,
puddings,
pies and
tarts. Confectionery includes candying and conserving flowers, fruits, and roots, as well as
jellies,
marmalades and decorative "sugar-works". Drinks include the making of
lemonade,
beer,
cider,
mead,
perry and English wines, as well as
cordials. The book ends with a list of suggested bills of fare for every month of the year. The book is prefaced with a four-page Introduction "To All Good Housewives", beginning "Worthy Dames, Were it not for the sake of Custom, which has made it as unfashionable for a Book to come abroad without an Introduction, as for a Man to appear at Church without a Neckcloth, or a Lady without a Hoop-petticoat, I should not have troubled you with this." The introduction ends with "Your humble Servant, The Compiler". There follows "Some Divertisements in Cookery, us'd at Festival-Times, as Twelfth-Day, &c." The main text is laid out as a dictionary from
Al to
Zest. It included items now unfamiliar, such as
Battalia Pye of Fish, a "very large Pye, and cut with
Battlements ... with as many Towers as will contain your several sorts of Fish", which included
salmon,
cockles,
prawns,
oysters, and
periwinkles. This is followed by Bills of Fare, Terms of Art for Carving, Instructions for Carving, The Manner of Setting out a Desert of Fruits and Sweet-meats, and the Alphabetical Index.
Approach Since the main text is an alphabetical list, there are no sections, and the recipes stand alone without instructions on kitchen equipment or general comments on types of dish. The entries are named, either like "Asparagus with Butter" as dishes, or like "To make an Amlet of Asparagus" as goals to be attained. The ingredients are not listed. Quantities, if mentioned at all, are simply included in the text, as "an Egg or two", relying on the cook's judgement as to the exact quantity needed. Cooking conditions are similarly mentioned only in passing, as "over a gentle Fire". For example:
Editions • First edition, 1723, C. Rivington, London. Transcript ::--- reprinted 1980, Lawrence Rivington, London. Introduction and glossary by
Elizabeth David ::--- reprinted 2012, Rare Books Club. • Second edition, 1724, C. Rivington, London. With additions • Third edition, 1726, C. Rivington, London. With additions ::--- reprinted 2005, Thomson Gale, Farmington Hills, Michigan • Fourth edition, 1733. C. Rivington, London. ==Reception==