Queen's Royal Cookery

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  • Intro

    This cookery book, first published in 1709, contains a wide variety of basic culinary recipes, including instructions for preserves, candies, cosmetics and 'beautifying waters.' The frontispiece shown here includes a portrait of Queen Anne, and illustrations of cooks busily turning spits, cooking puddings, kneading pastry dough and preparing medical brews.

     

    It is one of a number of books claiming to reveal the secrets of the royal kitchens; a highly fashionable subject during the 17th and 18th centuries. Queen Anne, who reigned from 1702 to1714, was a rich source of gossip, and the public seemed to have an endless fascination for any information gleaned from beyond the palace walls.

     

    The production of art and literature prospered during the reign of Queen Anne. Throughout this period booksellers churned out popular recipe books, fully aware of the commercial viability of recipes linked to prestigious chefs. Unfortunately many of the books were thrown together by money-making charlatans who had simply filched their material from existing publications. Forty of T. Hall's recipes were taken directly from The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelm Digby (1669).

     

    Shelfmark: C.115.aa.7.

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  • Transcript

    Queen's Royal Cookery book

    Original text:

     

    THE QUEEN'S Royal COOKERY:

    OR, Expert and ready Way for the Dressing of all Sorts of Flesh, Fowl, Fish: Either Baked, Boiled, Roasted, Stewed, Fryed, Boiled, Hashed, Fricasied, Carbonaded, Forced, Collared, Soused, Dried, &c.

    After the Best and Newest Way. With their several Sauces and Sallads.

    And making all Sorts of PICKLES

    ALSO

    Making Variety of Pies, Pasties, Tarts,Cheesecakes, Custards, Creams, &c.

    WITH

    The ART of Preserving and Candying of Fruits and Flowers; and the making of Conserves, Syrups, Jellies, and Cordial Waters, Also making several Sorts of English Wines, Ciders, Mead, Metheglin.

    TOGETHER

    With several Cosmetick or Beautifying Waters. And also several Sorts of Essences and Sweet Waters: By Persons of the Highest Quality.

    By T. Hall, Free Cook of London.

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