Evans' recipe cookery book

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

Evans' Recipe Cookery Book is a household cooking manual first published around 1900, here represented in its Third Edition, Twentieth Thousand printing, a detail suggesting it was a popular and widely reprinted title. It offers a broad survey of turn-of-the-century domestic cookery, moving from soups and fish through meat and vegetarian entrees, puddings, cakes and pastries, and finally sauces, preserves, confectionery, homemade beverages, and practical cooking instructions. With 275 anchored food records and a single medicinal entry, the book is overwhelmingly a culinary reference rather than a medical or household manual, though it does include a fermented milk preparation described as suitable for invalids. Readers will find recipes ranging from economical, resource-conscious dishes to more elaborate entertaining fare, reflecting the standards expected in a middle-class household of the period. The final section rounds out the collection with instructional guidance on roasting, boiling, and stewing meats, selecting poultry and veal, and a cookery time table, making the book as much a reference on technique as a recipe collection. This is a practical working kitchen text, useful today as a window into period foodways, techniques, and household economy.

The book is organized into four surviving sections that move through a logical cookery sequence. Section 1 opens with soups and fish, followed by an early run of savouries and entrees. Section 2 continues with meat and vegetarian entrees, poultry, game, and offal dishes before transitioning into puddings and sweet dishes, including Christmas fare. Section 4 covers cakes, pastries, buns, and small cakes, then shifts into jams, marmalades, custards, and pickles. Section 5 closes the book with sauces and condiments, confectionery, homemade wines and beverages, a brief medicinal preparation, and a substantial instructional block covering meat, fish, and pastry technique, ending with a cookery time table. The organization follows a typical period sequence of courses and categories rather than a strict alphabetical arrangement.