With the huge number of glossy cookbooks – mostly written by celebrity chefs and restaurant owners – released every year, it is easy to forget that recipe books have been around for centuries. Now Penguin aim to bring some of the best food writers from the past back to prominence by publishing "Great Food," a series of twenty paperbacks that celebrate our culinary predecessors.
The Well-Kept Kitchen
The oldest of the books is Gervaise Markham's The Well-Kept Kitchen, published in 1615 by a man perhaps better known as a poet. The book posited itself as a useful handbook for housewives, although much of the advice given on how the ideal wife should behave is perhaps rather impractical for modern-day living, suggesting that, "our English housewife be a woman of great modesty and temperance...let the housewife's garments be comely, cleanly and strong."
Whilst this is more interesting today as a curiosity rather than a blueprint for life, many of Markham's recipes do still look quite tempting, although old cooking methods and forgotten ingredients might test the reader's skill in the kitchen – the gingerbread recipe starts with a quart of honey which must be "set on the coals" and refined, before such mysterious ingredients as "sanders" and "penny manchets" are added.
Samuel Pepys' Food Diary
Perhaps the best-known of the writers in the series is Samuel Pepys, the most famous diarist of all time. Whilst not specifically a food writer, his accounts of everyday life in seventeenth century London are full of detailed accounts of what he ate and drank – he was clearly a man who enjoyed the finer things in life.
The "Great Reads" Pepys volume provides a fascinating insight into the eating habits of a wealthy London gentleman – he enjoys such delicacies as larks, pickled herrings and neat's tongues, and when the Great Fire of London sweeps through the city in 1666, he buries his most prized possessions in the garden for safe-keeping – his wine and his parmesan cheese.
First British Curry Recipe
One of the volumes – Hannah Glasse's Everlasting Syllabub and the Art of Carving – boasts the very first recipe published in Britain for "Curry the Indian Way". Using ginger, pepper and turmeric to produce the flavour we are so familiar with today, the recipe reflects the growing spice trade that allowed such exotic ingredients to reach British shores as long ago as 1747. Chef Clarissa Dickson-Wright calls Glasse the First Domestic Goddess, and there are indeed many recipes in this volume that the modern reader might fancy trying their hand at – perhaps not the turnip wine though.
Penguin "Great Food" Series
The beautifully designed books are published in the UK and cost £6.99 each. For the full list of titles visit the Penguin website.
Elizabeth Gregory - Liz graduated from Manchester University with a BA (Hons) in English Language & Literature, and also holds an MA in Literature from the ...
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