Plain cookery recipes

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Plain Cookery Recipes (1908) is an instructional cookbook issued by the Edinburgh School of Cookery and Domestic Economy, aimed at training households and students in methodical, economical cooking of the period. Drawing on 303 anchored food records across its sections, the book moves through the full arc of a household kitchen's repertoire: fish and meat cookery, sauces and vegetables, pastry and puddings, egg and breakfast dishes, breads, cakes, biscuits, scones, preserves, and finally a distinct section devoted to invalid and light cookery. The tone throughout is practical and precise, with attention to weight-based timing, proportions for sauces, and techniques for preserving color and texture in vegetables. It reflects the standards of an institutional cookery school seeking to balance thrift, particularly in its treatment of cold meat and leftovers, with the refined presentation expected in middle-class British and Scottish homes of the early twentieth century. Readers today will find it a window into domestic training curricula of the era, organized less as a browsing cookbook and more as a structured course of instruction, culminating in specialized recipes for the sick or convalescent. The final index consolidates the whole into an alphabetical reference for locating individual dishes.

The book proceeds section by section through a logical curriculum rather than a strict alphabetical dictionary format. It opens with fish and meat cookery (roasting, boiling, stewing), moves to cold meat cookery and sauces, then vegetables and salads, then pastry and puddings, then egg dishes and breakfast fare, then cakes, biscuits, scones, and preserves, and closes with a dedicated section on invalid and light cookery followed by a comprehensive alphabetical index. Section headings within each part (such as COLD MEAT COOKERY, SAUCES, VEGETABLES AND SALADS, PASTRY) mark clear subdivisions, and the final section's index ties all recipes together by ingredient and dish type.