To fine Wine the Lisbon way:—To every twenty gallons of wine take the whites of ten eggs, and a small handful of salt, beat it together to a froth, and mix it well with a quart or more of the wine, then pour it in the vessel, and in a few days it will be fine.
COOKERY BOOKS.
PART III.
In 1747 appeared a thin folio volume, of which I will transcribe the title: "The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, which far Exceeds Every Thing of the Kind Ever yet Published ... By a Lady. London: Printed for the Author; and sold at Mrs. Ashburn's, a China Shop, the Corner of Fleet Ditch. MDCCXLVII." The lady was no other than Mrs. Glasse, wife of an attorney residing in Carey Street; and a very sensible lady she was, and a very sensible and interesting book hers is, with a preface showing that her aim was to put matters as plainly as she could, her intention being to instruct the lower sort. "For example," says she, "when I bid them lard a fowl, if I should bid them lard with large lardoons they would not know what I meant; but when I say they must lard with little pieces of Bacon, they know what I mean." I have been greatly charmed with Hannah Glasse's "Art of Cookery," 1747, and with her "Complete Confectioner" likewise in a modified degree. The latter was partly derived, she tells you, from the manuscript of "a very old experienced housekeeper to a family of the first distinction." But, nevertheless, both are very admirable performances; and yet the compiler survives scarcely more than in an anecdote for which I can see no authority. For she does not say, "First catch your hare" [Footnote: Mrs. Glasse's cookery book was reprinted at least as late as 1824].
Mrs. Glasse represents that, before she undertook the preparation of the volume on confectionery, there was nothing of the kind for reference and consultation. But we had already a curious work by E. Kidder, who was, according to his title-page, a teacher of the art which he expounded eventually in print. The title is sufficiently descriptive: "E. Kidder's Receipts of Pastry and Cookery, for the use of his Scholars, who teaches at his School in Queen Street, near St. Thomas Apostle's, [Footnote: In another edition his school is in St. Martin's Le Grand] on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, in the afternoon. Also on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, in the afternoon, at his School next to Furnivalls Inn in Holborn. Ladies may be taught at their own Houses." It is a large octavo, consisting of fifty pages of engraved text, and is embellished with a likeness of Mr. Kidder. For all that Mrs. Glasse ignores him.
I have shown how Mrs. Glasse might have almost failed to keep a place in the public recollection, had it not been for a remark which that lady did not make. But there is a still more singular circumstance connected with her and her book, and it is this—that in Dr. Johnson's day, and possibly in her own lifetime, a story was current that the book was really written by Dr. Hill the physician. That gentleman's claim to the authorship has not, of course, been established, but at a dinner at Dilly's the publisher's in 1778, when Johnson, Miss Seward, and others were present, a curious little discussion arose on the subject. Boswell thus relates the incident and the conversation:—"The subject of cookery having been very naturally introduced at a table, where Johnson, who boasted of the niceness of his palate, avowed that 'he always found a good dinner,' he said, 'I could write a better book about cookery than has ever yet been written; it should be a book upon philosophical principles. Pharmacy is now made much more simple. Cookery may be so too. A prescription, which is now compounded of five ingredients, had formerly fifty in it. So in Cookery. If the nature of the ingredients is well known, much fewer will do. Then, as you cannot make bad meat good, I would tell what is the best butcher's meat, the best beef, the best pieces; how to choose young fowls; the proper seasons of different vegetables; and then how to roast, and boil, and compound."
DILLY:—"Mrs. Glasse's 'Cookery,' which is the best, was written by Dr. Hill. Half the trade know this."