Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine

In the time of Elizabeth, the price at an ordinary for a dinner seems to have been sixpence. It subsequently rose to eightpence ; and in the time of George I. the “Vade Mecum for Malt Worms (1720)” speaks of the landlord of The Bell, in Carter Lane, raising his tariff to tenpence. In comparison with the cost of a similar meal at present, all these quotations strike one as high, when the different value of money is considered. But in 1720, at all events, the customer ate at his own discretion. Their vicinity to East Cheap, the great centre of early taverns and cook’s-shops, obtained for Pudding Lane and Pie Corner those savoury designations. Meals. 253 Paris, like London, had its cook’s-shops, where you might eat your dinner on the premises, or have it brought to your lodging in a covered dish by a porte-chape. In the old prints of French kitchen interiors, the cook’s inseparable companion is his ladle, which he used for stirring and serving, and occasionally for dealing a refractory garfon de cuisine a rap on the head. The Dictionary of Johannes de Garlandia (early thirteenth century) represents the cooks at Paris as imposing on the ignorant and inexperienced badly cooked or even tainted meat, which injured their health. These “coquinarii” stood, perhaps, in the same relation to those times as our keepers of restaurants. He mentions in another place that the cooks washed their utensils in hot water, as well as the plates and dishes on which the victuals were served. Mr. Wright has cited an instance from the romance of “ Doon de Mayence,” where the guards of a castle, on a warm summer evening, partook of their meal in a field. Re- Meals. freshment in the open air was also usual in the hunting season, when a party were at a distance from home ; and the garden arbour was occasionally converted to this kind of purpose, when it had assumed its more modern phase. But our picnic was unknown. ETIQUETTE OF THE TABLE. PAUL HENTZNER, who was in England at the end of the reign of Elizabeth, remarks of the people whom he saw that “they are more polite in eating than the French, devouring less bread, but more meat, which they roast in perfection. They put a good deal of sugar in their drink.” In his “Court and Country,” 1618, Nicholas Breton gives an instructive account of the strict rules which were drawn up for observance in great households at that time, and says that the gentlemen who attended on great lords and ladies had enough to do to carry 256 Etiquette of the Table. these orders out. Not a trencher must be laid or a napkin folded awry ; not a dish misplaced ; not a capon carved or a rabbit unlaced contrary to the usual practice ; not a glass filled or a cup uncovered save at the appointed moment : everybody must stand, speak, and look according to regulation.