Curious cookbook : viper soup, badger ham, stewed sparrows & 100 more historic recipes/ by Peter Ross

ISBN:

9781935613527

Title:

Author:

Ross, Peter

Personal Author:

Ross, Peter

Publication Information:

London : The British Library, 2012.

Physical Description:

xii. 164 p. : col. ill. ; 22 cm.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: Recipes -- A medieval lasagne (c. 1390) -- Preparing edible `garbage' (c. 1450) and `compost' (c. 1390) -- Roasted milk (c. 1430) -- Hawthorn flower pudding (c. 1430) -- A mythical beast created from half a pig and half a cockerel (c. 1430) -- An artificial pitcher made of pork, cheese and bread (c. 1430) -- Boiled minnows (c. 1450) -- Porpoise with wheat porridge (c. 1450) -- How to roast a peacock and serve him in his skin (c. 1450) -- Imitation entrails (c. 1450) -- To make one capon into two by blowing up the skin (1468) -- Eggs in moonshine (1545) -- A dishful of snow (1545) -- To cook shoes (1545) -- A rabbit with a pudding in his belly (1591) -- A carp with fruit pudding in his belly (1596) -- Stewed sparrows on toast (1591) -- A cockerel distilled with gold for treating consumption (1591) -- Fruit pudding in a hollowed-out turnip (1591) -- Portuguese puffs (1591) -- Candied sea holly (c. 1602) --

Contents note continued: Rabbits, woodcock and other animals cast in sugar (c. 1602) -- Thirst-quenching fruit pastilles for ladies (c. 1602) -- Nutmegs candied for three weeks then smashed out of their pots (c. 1602) -- Fruit preserved in pitch (c. 1602) -- A cucumber stuffed with barley to attract flies (c. 1602) -- Butter roasted on a spit (1615) -- Dried instant vinegar for travellers (1615) -- Minnow, tansey, cowslip and primrose omelette (1653) -- Sauteed tortoise with asparagus (1653) -- Whore's farts (1653) -- Barbecued otter (1653) -- Pies containing live frogs and birds, a pastry stag that bleeds, exploding ships and castles (1660) -- Lips, noses, udders, ox-eyes and sparrows on toast (1660) -- Fishy mince pies (1660) -- A cure for the plague (1669) -- To bottle cock ale (1669) -- Slices of bacon imitated in marzipan (1671) -- A great swan pie and a swan-skin stomacher (1682) -- A sweet and spicy potato and fruit pie (1682) --

Contents note continued: A tart made with a gallon of cowship flowers (1682) -- A pickle of green ash keys (1696) -- A sea-duck served with a sauce of chocolate, truffles and morels (1702) -- Badger ham anyone? (1736) -- Viper soup, or viper and snail broth (1736) -- A jellied rock pool complete with fish, shells and seaweed (1736) -- Larks, served in a nest of eggs or shaped like a pear with their feet as a stalk (1736) -- Baked wheatears potted in butter (1736) -- Calves feet served with a sweet currant and cream sauce (1736) -- Little dishes of mushroom-stuffed cockscombs in gravy (1747) -- Kebabs of ox palate, pigeon, chicken-peepers, cockscombs and oysters (1747) -- Instant meat-stock `glue' to carry in your pocket (1747) -- Hannah Glasse's poisonous purple pears (1747) -- To cook eggs in a butter whirlpool, make one giant egg using bladders and golden fairy butter to look like vermicelli (1747) -- Artificial asses' milk made with bruised snails (1747) --

Contents note continued: A barrel of tripe to take to the East Indies (1747) -- A ketchup that will last you twenty years (1747) and an eighteenth-century Worcestershire sauce (1778) -- How to tell if waders, gulls and dotterels are fresh or stale (1758) -- Chopped brain fritters (1764) -- Hens, fish, eggs, bacon, islands and playing cards in jelly (1778) -- Rabbits with jaw-bone horns, a bunch of myrtle in their mouths and a frothy liver sauce (1800) -- How to turn a live turtle into soup and serve it in its shell (1808) -- A hairy heart for Valentine's Day (1830) -- A Victorian savoury cheese ice cream (1845) -- The swim bladder of a cod served with egg sauce (1845) -- The flavour and texture of mature cheese created with eggs and spices (1852) -- A sweet `cocktail' of sherry, port and chocolate (1852) -- Arctic jelly (1852) -- Mrs Beeton's nourishing soup for the deserving poor (1861) -- Mrs Beeton's extremely economical soup for children (1861) --

Contents note continued: Mrs Beeton's stock cubes (1861) -- Making a meal of a cod's head and shoulders (1861) -- A cheap pudding for soldiers and sailors on half-pay (1861) -- To make a pint of gruel for invalids (1861) -- How to avoid making an exceedingly disagreeable beverage (1861) -- How to cook birds nests as white as snow (1869) -- Tendons with all the meat removed served in gravy with peas (1869) -- Kangaroo soup and curry, roast wallaby and parakeet pie (1889) -- Horse artillery pudding, gun troop sauce for puddings and bunny hugs (1912) -- An economical savoury trifle (1917) -- The working-class tea and jazz-age cocktails (1921) -- Hedgehog cooked in a ball of clay (1940) -- Several ways to cook squirrel, including a squirrel-tail soup (1940) -- How to avoid a bitter rook stew (1940) -- Vine-leaf wrapped sparrows or starlings on toast (1940) -- Freshly roasted asparagus coffee (1940) -- A kitchen goes to war (1940) -- Potato Pete and Doctor Carrot (c. 1941) --

Contents note continued: The hidden delights of cold porridge (1942) -- Further uses for cold porridge (1944).

Subject Term:

Cookery

Added Author:

Blumenthal, Heston

Format:

Books

Publication Date:

2012

Publication Information:

London : The British Library, 2012.

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
ARC 641.5 ROS	Archive Collection	1	Special Collections Research Room	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

In this day and age of celebrity chefs and food porn, the recipes and illustrations from historical cookbooks can appear quaint, bizarre, revolting, or downright absurd.

From the frugal to the fantastical, The Curious Cookbook features the most unusual and fascinating recipes from historical cookbooks dating from the Middle Ages to the Second World War. While all of the featured recipes can be recreated, they also offer fascinating insights into the cultural, economic, and regional aspects of the eras.

The Forme of Cury , published in 1390 and the oldest known English-language cookbook, details how to cook whale, crane, heron, seal, and porpoise. An early eighteenth-century cookery shares the Queen's recipe for "cosmetick water to collar eels"; The Boke of Kokery provides all of the details for recreating "soltete," an elaborate Bible-themed sugar sculpture first made for the 1443 ordination of the Archbishop of Canterbury; The Hard Time Cookery from 1941 explains how to make mayonnaise without eggs, using "1 tin sweetened milk, an equal amount of vinegar, 1 tbsp salad oil, 1 tbsp made mustard, salt."

Never before have examples from so many rare and exotic cookbooks been available in a single volume, promising entertaining and informative recipes for cooks, as well as history buffs.

Author Notes

Peter Ross is the principal librarian at the Guildhall Library, London. He is in charge of historical cookery books, of which Guildhall Library holds the largest public collection in the United Kingdom.

Chef Heston Blumenthal is best known for The Fat Duck Restaurant, where his innovative menus have resulted in three Michelin stars and awards for Restaurant of the Year, Best Restaurant in the World and Best Restaurant in the UK. He is also the author of several cookbooks.