Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine

spread from Italy — which itself in turn borrowed the taste from the East — to France and England ; and, as we perceive from the descriptions furnished in books, these were often of a very elaborate and costly character. The volume is of the less interest for us, as it is a translation from the French, and consequently does not throw a direct light on our own kitchens at this period. But of course collaterally it presents many features of likeness and analogy, and may be compared with Braithwaite’s earlier view to which I shall presently advert. The following anecdote is given in the Epistle to Fox : “ Many do believe the French way of working is cheapest ; but let these examine this book, and then they may see (for their satisfaction) which is the best husbandry, to extract gold out of herbs, or to make a pottage of a stone, by the example of two soldiers, who in their quarters were minded to have a pottage ; the first of them coming into a house and asking for all things necessary to the making of one, was as soon told that he could have none of these things Royal Feasts and Savage Pomp. 39 there, whereupon he went away, and the other coming in with a stone in his knapsack, asked only for a Pot to boil his stone in, that he might make a dish of broth of it for his supper, which was quickly granted him ; and when the stone had boiled a little while, then he asked for a small bit of beef, then for a piece of mutton, and so for veal, bacon, etc., till by little and little he got all things requisite, and he made an excellent pottage of his stone, at as cheap a rate (it may be) as the cook extracted Gold from Herbs.” The kitchen-staff of a noble establishment in the first quarter of the seventeenth century we glean from Braithwaite’s “Rules and Orders for the Government of the House of an Earl,” which, if the “ M. L.” for whom the piece was composed was his future wife, Mistress Lawson, cannot have seen the light later than 1617, in which year they were married. He specifies — (1) a yeoman and groom for the cellar; (2) a yeoman and groom for the pantry; (3) a yeoman and groom for the buttery ; (3 a) a yeoman for the ewery ; (4) 40 Royal Feasts and Savage Pomp. a yeoman purveyor; (5) a master-cook, under-cooks, and three pastry-men ; (6) a yeoman and groom in the scullery, one t© be in the larder and slaughter-house ; (7) an achator or buyer ; (8) three conducts [query, errand-boys] and three kitchen-boys. The writer also admits us to a rather fuller acquaintance with the mode in which the marketing was done. He says that the officers, among other matters, “ must be able to judge, not only of the prices, but also of the goodness of all kinds of corn, cattle, and household provisions ; and the better to enable themselves thereto, are oftentimes to ride to fairs and great markets, and there to have conference with graziers and purveyors.” The higher officers were to see that the master was not deceived by purveyors and buyers, and that other men’s cattle did not feed on my lord’s pastures ; they were to take care that the clerk of the kitchen kept his day-book “ in that perfect and good order, that at the end of every week or month it be pied out,” and that a true docket of all kinds of provisions be set down. They were Royal Feasts and Savage Pomp. 41