The Compleat Cook or the Secrets of a Seventeenth-Century Housewife

Rebecca Price, Madeleine Masson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781032371283
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000788778
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: World History

First published in 1974, The Compleat Cook is a book to inspire any creative cook in the days of tasteless, mass-produced foods. By the subtle use of herbs, wines and flavorings of all kinds Rebecca Price has provided us with multitude of new culinary experiences. These are the recipes of a practical cook, collected, tried and commented upon with meticulous care. Furthermore the book also tells us about Rebecca, her family, friends, servants, her kitchen and even the silver she used as hostess to many guests throughout her life in Westbury, Bucks, in London and in Houghton Regis, Beds. Madeleine Masson in her introduction is able to set Rebecca Price's work in a scholarly historical context to give a lively account of her family background. This book will be a useful resource for collectors of cookery books and also for social historians and students of food history.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Family Tree of Rebecca Price
• Family Tree of the Brandreth Family
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Using Rebecca Price’s Receipts
• A Note on the Adaptation of the Wine-Making Receipts
• The Receipts [Recipes]
• Glossary to the Receipts
• Biographical Notes
• Appendix I Rebecca’s Will
• Appendix II Extract from an Inventory of the Contents of the Manor House at Houghton Regis
• Bibliography
• Culinary Index