The accomplisht cook: or, The art & mystery of cookery

reposing of her lately so alarmed Head on your beds of Honour: In the mean space that our English World may know the _Mecæna_'s and Patrons of this Generous Art, I have exposed this Volume to the Publick, under the Tuition of your Names; at whose Feet I prostrate these Endeavours, and shall for ever remain _Your most humble devoted Servant._ _ROBERT MAY._ _From _Soleby_ in _Leicestershire_, September 29. 1684._ _To the Master Cooks, and to such young Practitioners of the Art of Cookery, to whom this Book may be useful._ To you first, most worthy Artists, I acknowledg one of the chief Motives that made me to adventure this Volume to your Censures, hath been to testifie my gratitude to your experienced Society; nor could I omit to direct it to you, as it hath been my ambition, that you should be sensible of my Proficiency of Endeavours in this Art. To all honest well intending Men of our Profession, or others, this Book cannot but be acceptable, as it plainly and profitably discovers the _Mystery_ of the _whole Art_; for which, though I may be _envied by some that only value their private Interests above Posterity, and the publick good_, yet God and my own Conscience would not permit me _to bury these my Experiences with my Silver Hairs in the Grave_: and that more especially, as the advantages of my Education hath raised me above the _Ambitions_ of others, in the converse I have had with other _Nations_, who in this _Art_ fall short of what I _have known experimented by you my worthy Country men_. Howsoever, the _French by their Insinuations, not without enough of Ignorance_, have bewitcht some of the _Gallants of our Nation_ with Epigram Dishes, smoakt rather than drest, so strangely to captivate the _Gusto_, their _Mushroom'd Experiences_ for _Sauce_ rather than _Diet_, for the generality howsoever called _A-la-mode_, not worthy of being taken notice on. As I live in _France_, and had the Language and have been an eye-witness of their _Cookeries_ as well, as a Peruser of their Manuscripts, and Printed