Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine

aid to our knowledge of the manner in which the table of the well-to-do Englishman was furnished in the time of Henry VI., and it is so far special, that it deals with the subject more from a middle-class point of view than the "Regulations for the Royal Household," and other similar compilations, which I have to bring under notice. The names, as usual, are often misleading, as in _blanc manger_, which is very different from our _blanc-mange_; and the receipt for "goose in a hog pot" leaves one in doubt as to its adaptability to the modern palate. The poetical ambition of the author has proved a source of embarrassment here and there; and in the receipt "for a service on a fish-day" the practitioner is prayed within four lines to cover his white herring for God's sake, and lay mustard over his red for God's love, because _sake_ and _love_ rhyme with _take_ and _above_. The next collection of receipts, which exists in a complete and homogeneous shape, is the "Noble Book of Cookery," of which an early MS. copy at Holkham was edited in 1882 by Mrs. Napier, but which had already been printed by Pynson in 1500, and subsequently by his successor, John Byddell. This interesting and important volume commences with a series of descriptions of certain royal and noble entertainments given on various occasions from the time of Henry IV. to that of Edward IV., and then proceeds to furnish a series of directions for the cook of a king's or prince's household; for, although both at the outset and the conclusion we are told that these dishes were calculated for all estates, it is abundantly obvious that they were such as never then, or very long subsequently, reached much lower than the court or the aristocracy. There is a less complete copy here of the feast at the enthronement of Archbishop Nevile. I regret that neither of the old printed copies is at present accessible. That of 1500 was formerly in the library at Bulstrode, and I was given by the late Mr. Bradshaw