Wholesome cookery

From the librarian's dossier · AI-generated, grounded in the scanned text

Wholesome Cookery is a Victorian household cookbook by Marie de Joncourt, published in its fifth edition in 1887 by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. The book offers a large, French-influenced collection of recipes for soups, sauces, vegetables, eggs, meats, poultry, game, fish, puddings, creams, cakes, preserves, and beverages, numbered sequentially under practical headings. The opening pages set out the author's philosophy of household economy, arguing that thrift comes from skillful use of ingredients rather than mere restriction, and urging cooks to know their stoves and mistresses to plan meals thoughtfully. Twenty-four sample dinner menus open the recipe sequence, after which the book moves methodically through courses in the manner typical of period cookery manuals, closing with an alphabetical index. A substantial portion of the surviving material is not cookery content at all but a bound-in publisher's catalog from Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., advertising other titles in literature, theology, science, and Oriental studies. Modern readers will find a detailed record of upper-middle-class Victorian domestic cookery, rich in French technique and elaborate presentation, alongside a window into the broader publishing world of the era through the attached catalog pages.

The book opens with a preface on household economy and menu planning, twenty-four sample dinner menus, and a numbered sequence of soup recipes (section 1). It proceeds through sauces and vegetable and starch dishes (section 3), eggs and meats (section 4), poultry, game, and early sweets (section 5), elaborate puddings, creams, and savory courses (section 6), a miscellaneous 'Sundries' section covering pastes, preserves, beverages, fish, and invalid cookery (section 7), salads, stuffed dishes, and pastries and desserts (section 8), and a final run of creams, cakes, preserves, and beverages closing with a comprehensive alphabetical index (section 9). Recipes are numbered continuously across sections, with headings marking transitions between categories such as soups, sauces, vegetables, eggs, meats, and sweets. Sections 10 through 15 are not part of the cookbook itself but a bound publisher's catalog from Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., listing unrelated scholarly, theological, Oriental studies, military, educational, and literary titles, including a catalog listing for Wholesome Cookery itself (section 10).