The Miscellaneous Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart (Volume 19); Periodical Criticism. 3-5. Miscellaneous (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 100 ARTICLE II. OX TWO COOKERY BOOKS. ]This article appeared in the Edinburgh Review for July 1805, the works criticised being?1. The New Practice of Cookery, fyc. By Mrs Hudson and Mrs Donat, present and late Housekeepers and Cooks to Mrs Buchan Hepburn, of Smeaton, ?and 2. Culina Famu- latrix Medicinae; or, Receipts in Modern Cookery, with a Medical Commentary, written by Ignotus, and Revised by A. Hunter, M. D.] It seems to have been a complaint familiar in the mouths of our ancestors, and which we have too often seen cause to re-echo in the present day, That God sends good meat, but the devil sends cooks. The irritability, the obstinacy, and the perfidy of the present culinary race, indeed, obviously demonstrate their ascent from regions even hotter than those which they occupy upon earth; and, while the direct attacks of the arch-enemy are opposed and counteracted by the clergy, who may be considered as the regular forces to whom our defence is intrusted, it is with pleasure we see a disposition, in the learned and experienced among the laity, to volunteer against the hordes of greasy Cossacks whom he detaches to those uarters, asmarauders upon our daily patience and our annual income. In first entering the field upon this occasion, we had some difficulty to settle the rank of these auxiliaries amongst themselves, or, to drop the metaphor, we were at a loss, after considering the high claim to attention preferred by both publications, to which we ought to give the precedence in our critique. It is true, Mesdames Hudson mid Donat prefer a bold claim to the grateful recollection of those who have regaled on their dainties. It becomes them not, as they are modestly pleased to express it, to judge of their own merit; but with honest confidence they appeal t...