The Mansion House still retains the ancient usage of distributing the relics of a great feast afterwards among the poor, as Cromwell is said just above to have made a rule of his household. It was a practice highly essential in the absence of any organised system of relief.
The reign of Charles II., which witnessed a relationship with France of a very different character from that which the English maintained during the Plantagenet and earlier Tudor rule, was favourable to the naturalisation of the Parisian school of cookery, and numerous works were published at and about that time, in which the development of knowledge in this direction is shown to have taken place pari passu with the advance in gardening and arboriculture under the auspices of Evelyn.
In 1683 we come to a little volume entitled "The Young Cook's Monitor," by M.H., who made it public for the benefit of his (or her) scholars; a really valuable and comprehensive manual, wherein, without any attempt at arrangement, there is an ample assemblage of directions for preparing for the table all kinds of joints, made dishes, soups and broths, frigacies, puddings, pies, tarts, tansies, and jellies. Receipts for pickling are included, and two ways are shown how we should treat turnips after this wise. Some of the ingredients proposed for sauces seem to our ears rather prodigious. In one place a contemporary peruser has inserted an ironical calculation in MS. to the effect that, whereas a cod's head could be bought for fourpence, the condiments recommended for it were not to be had for less than nine shillings. The book teaches us to make Scotch collops, to pickle lemons and quinces, to make French bread, to collar beef, pork, or eels, to make gooseberry fool, to dry beef after the Dutch fashion, to make sack posset two ways, to candy flowers (violets, roses, etc.) for salads, to pickle walnuts like mangoes, to make flummery, to make a carp pie, to pickle French beans and cucumbers, to make damson and quince wines, to make a French pudding (called a Pomeroy pudding), to make a leg of pork like a Westphalia ham, to make mutton as beef, and to pot beef to eat like venison.
These and many other precepts has M.H. left behind him; and a sort of companion volume, printed a little before, goes mainly over the same ground, to wit, "Rare and Excellent Receipts Experienced and Taught by Mrs. Mary Tillinghast, and now printed for the use of her scholars only," 1678. The lady appealed to a limited constituency, like M.H.; but her pages, such as they are (for there are but thirty), are now publici juris. The lesson to be drawn from Mistress Tillinghast's printed labours is that, among our ancestors in 1678, pies and pasties of all sorts, and sweet pastry, were in increased vogue. Her slender volume is filled with elucidations on the proper manufacture of paste of various sorts; and in addition to the pies designated by M.H. we encounter a Lombard pie, a Battalia pie, an artichoke pie, a potato (or secret) pie, a chadron [Footnote: A pie chiefly composed of a calf's chadroa] pie, and a herring pie. The fair author takes care to instruct us as to the sauces or dressings which are to accompany certain of her dishes.
"The Book of Cookery," 1500, of which there was a reprint by John Byddell about 1530 was often republished, with certain modifications, down to 1650, under the titles of "A Proper New Book of Cookery," or "The Book of Cookery." Notwithstanding the presence of many competitors, it continued to be a public favourite, and perhaps answered the wants of those who did not desire to see on their tables the foreign novelties introduced by travellers, or advertised in collections of receipts borrowed from other languages.
In fact, the first half of the seventeenth century did not witness many accessions to the store of literature on this subject. But from the time of the Commonwealth, the supply of works of reference for the housekeeper and the cook became much more regular and extensive. In 1653, Selden's friend, the Countess of Kent, brought out her "Choice Manual of Physic and Chirurgery," annexing to it receipts for preserving and candying; and there were a few others, about the same time, of whose works I shall add here a short list:—
1. The Accomplished Cook. By Robert May. 8vo, 1660. Fifth edition, 8vo, 1685.
2. The Whole Body of Cookery Dissected. By Will. Rabisha. 8vo, 1661.
3. The Queen-like Closet: a Rich Cabinet, stored with all manner of rare receipts. By Hannah Wolley. 8vo, 1670.
4. The True Way of Preserving and Candying, and making several sorts of Sweetmeats. Anon. 8vo, 1681.