TO GUSTAVUS BRANDER, Esq. F.R.S. F.S.A. and Cur. Brit. Mus.
SIR,
I return your very curious Roll of Cookery, and I trust with some Interest, not full I confess nor legal, but the utmost which your Debtor, from the scantiness of his ability, can at present afford. Indeed, considering your respectable situation in life, and that diffusive sphere of knowledge and science in which you are acting, it must be exceedingly difficult for any one, how well furnished soever, completely to answer your just, or even most moderate demands. I intreat the favour of you, however, to accept for once this short payment in lieu of better, or at least as a public testimony of that profound regard wherewith I am,
SIR,
Your affectionate friend, and most obliged servant, St. George's day, 1780.
S. PEGGE.
PREFACE
TO THE
CURIOUS ANTIQUARIAN READER.
Without beginning ab ovo on a subject so light (a matter of importance, however, to many a modern Catius or Amasinius), by investigating the origin of the Art of Cookery, and the nature of it as practised by the Antediluvians [1]; without dilating on the several particulars concerning it afterwards amongst the Patriarchs, as found in the Bible [2], I shall turn myself immediately, and without further preamble, to a few cursory observations respecting the Greeks, Romans, Britons, and those other nations, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, with whom the people of this nation are more closely connected.