What might you find in these old cookbooks? What special recipes have been handed down to you? Share in the Comments!
PREFACE
TO THIS EDITION,
INCLUDING A FEW HINTS TO HOUSEWIVES.
While man has been chai’acterized as a cooking animal, the capabilities of woman to undertake even the minor branches of the culinary art have been doubted and denied. All gastronomes of a refined grade unite in denouncing she-cooks ; and M. Ude, when he wishes to express his contempt for any commonplace dish, says, “ A woman can do it.” An observation of Dr. Johnson’s shows upon how very low a scale that learned person rated the culinary talents of the sex. “ Women,” he remarks, “can spin very well, but they cannot write a book of cookery.” Women have written more extraordinary things since his time ; and Mrs. Rundell’s excellent work — a work which far sur- passed all its predecessors, and continues to be the best treatise extant concerning the art — shows that the Doctor did not do justice to feminine ingenuity.
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