The British Housewife, v. 5 - The Cook, Housekeeper's and Gardiner's Companion (Paperback, Facsimile edition)

This is the fourth of six parts of a facsimile reprint of a compendium of cookery, gardening, animal husbandry and general household medicine which was published in two volumes in about 1760, having first been offered to the public in 41 weekly parts in 1756. The author claimed "upwards of Thirty Years Experience" as housekeeper or cook, possibly in the service of a Lady Hewit, whose manuscript receipt book - cookery and medicinal - is copied into the published work. The work is arranged as a calendar discussing marketing, cooking, preserving, brewing, medicines for men and animals, and tending the orchard, the herb and vegetable garden and the pleasure garden, month by month. Among its features are descriptions of foods bought - spices, sugar, anchovies, olives, soy sauce - as well as foods grown or cooked. Other hints about marketing - buying fish, for instance - are more detailed than in many other manuals of the period, and there are lists of specific varieties of fruits as they are ready for the table.