[Unless otherwise noted, spelling and punctuation are unchanged. Errors are listed at the end of the text.]
THE Accomplisht Cook, OR THE ART & MYSTERY OF COOKERY.
Wherein the whole ART is revealed in a more easie and perfect Method, than hath been publisht in any language.
Expert and ready Ways for the Dressing of all Sorts of FLESH, FOWL, and FISH, with variety of SAUCES proper for each of them; and how to raise all manner of Pastes; the best Directions for all sorts of Kickshaws, also the Terms of CARVING and SEWING.
An exact account of all Dishes for all Seasons of the Year, with other A-la-mode Curiosities.
The Fifth Edition, with large Additions throughout the whole work: besides two hundred Figures of several Forms for all manner of bak'd Meats, (either Flesh, or Fish) as, Pyes Tarts, Custards; Cheesecakes, and Florentines, placed in Tables, and directed to the Pages they appertain to.
Approved by the fifty five Years Experience and Industry of ROBERT MAY; in his Attendance on several Persons of great Honour.
London, Printed for Obadiah Blagrave at the Bear and Star in St. Pauls Church-Yard, 1685.
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CONTENTS
[Added by transcriber using author's section headings.]
Directions for the order of carving Fowl.
Bills of Fare for every Season in the Year
SECTION I: Perfect Directions for the A-la-mode Ways of dressing all manner of Boyled Meats, with their several sauces, &c.
To make several sorts of Puddings. Sheeps Haggas Puddings. To make any kind of sausages. To make all manner of Hashes. Pottages. Divers made Dishes or Capilotado's.
SECTION II: An hundred and twelve excellent wayes for the dressing of Beef.
SECTION III: The A-la-mode ways of dressing the Heads of any Beasts.
SECTION IV: The rarest Ways of dressing of all manner of Roast Meats, either of Flesh or Fowl, by Sea or land, with their Sauces that properly belong to them.
SECTION V: The best way of making all manner of Sallets.
SECTION VI: To make all manner of Carbonadoes, either of Flesh or Fowl; as also all manner of fried Meats of Flesh, Collops and Eggs, with the most exquisite way of making Pancakes, Fritters, and Tansies.
SECTION VII: The most Excellent Ways of making All sorts of Puddings.
SECTION VIII: The rarest Ways of making all manner of Souces and Jellies.
SECTION IX: The best way of making all manner of baked Meats.
SECTION X: To bake all manner of Curneld Fruits in Pyes, Tarts, or made Dishes, raw or preserved, as Quinces, Warden, Pears, Pippins, &c.
SECTION XI: To make all manner of made Dishes, with or without Paste.
SECTION XII: To make all manner of Creams, Sack-Possets, Sillabubs, Blamangers, White-Pots, Fools, Wassels, &c.
SECTION XIII: The First Section for dressing of Fish. Shewing divers ways, and the most excellent, for Dressing of Carps, either Boiled, Stewed, Broiled, Roasted, or Baked, &c.
SECTION XIV: The Second Section of Fish. Shewing the most Excellent Ways of Dressing of Pikes.
SECTION XV: The Third Section for dressing of Fish. The most excellent ways of Dressing Salmon, Bace, or Mullet.
SECTION XVI: The fourth Section for dressing of Fish. Shewing the exactest ways of dressing Turbut, Plaice, Flounders, and Lampry.
SECTION XVII: The Fifth Section of Fish. Shewing the best way to Dress Eels, Conger, Lump, and Soals.
SECTION XVIII: The Sixth Section of Fish. The A-la-mode ways of Dressing and Ordering of Sturgeon.
SECTION XIX: The Seventh Section of Fish. Shewing the exactest Ways of Dressing all manner of Shell-Fish.
SECTION XX: To make all manner of Pottages for Fish-Days.
SECTION XXI: The exactest Ways for the Dressing of Eggs.
SECTION XXII: The best Ways for the Dressing of Artichocks.
SECTION XXIII: Shewing the best way of making Diet for the Sick.
SECTION XXIV: Excellent Ways for Feeding of Poultrey.
[Index] THE TABLE
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_To the Right Honourable my Lord Montague, My Lord Lumley, and my Lord Dormer; and to the Right worshipful Sir Kenelme Digby, so well known to this Nation for their Admired Hospitalities._
Right Honourable, and Right Worshipful,
He is an Alien, a meer Stranger in England, that hath not been acquainted with your generous House-keepings; for my own part my more particular tyes of service to you my Honoured Lords, have built me up to the height of this Experience, for which this Book now at last dares appear to the World; those times which I tended upon your Honours were those Golden Days of Peace and Hospitality when you enjoyed your own, so as to entertain and releive others.
Right Honourable, and Right Worshipful, I have not only been an eye-witness, but interested by my attendance; so as that I may justly acknowledge those Triumphs and magnificent Trophies of Cookery that have adorned your Tables; nor can I but confess to the world, except I should be Guilty of the highest Ingratitude, that the only structure of this my Art and knowledge, I owed to your costs, generous and inimitable Epences; thus not only I have derived my experience, but your Country hath reapt the Plenty of your Humanity and charitable Bounties.
Right Honourable, and Right Worshipful, Hospitality which was once a Relique of the Gentry, and a known Cognizance to all ancient Houses, hath lost her Title through the unhappy and Cruel Disturbances of these Times, she is now 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 Authors whatsoever I found good in them, I have inserted in this Volume. I do acknowledg my self not to be a little beholding to the Italian and Spanish Treatises; though without my fosterage, and bringing up under the Generosities and Bounties of my Noble Patrons and Masters, I could never have arrived to this Experience. To be confined and limited to the narrowness of a Purse, is to want the Materials from which the Artist must gain his knowledge. Those Honourable Persons, my Lord Lumley, and others, with whom I have spent a part of my time, were such whose generous cost never weighed the Expence, so that they might arrive to that right and high esteem they had of their Gusto's. Whosoever peruses this Volume shall find it amply exemplified in Dishes of such high prices, which only these Noblesses Hospitalities did reach to: I should have sinned against their (to be perpetuated) Bounties, if I had not set down their several varieties, that the Reader might be as well acquainted with what is extraordinary, as what is ordinary in this Art; as I am truly sensible, that some of those things that I have set down will amaze a not thorow-paced Reader in the Art of Cookery, as they are Delicates, never till this time made known to the World.
Fellow Cooks, that I might give a testimony to my Countrey of the laudableness of our Profession, that I might encourage young Undertakers to make a Progress in the Practice of this Art, I have laid open these Experiences, as I was most unwilling to hide my Talent, but have ever endeavoured to do good to others; I acknowledge that there hath already been several Books publisht, and amongst the rest some out of the French, for ought I could perceive to very little purpose, empty and unprofitable Treatises, of as little use as some Niggards Kitchens, which the Reader in respect of the confusion of the Method, or barrenness of those Authors experience, hath rather been puzled then profited by; as those already extant Authors have trac't but one common beaten Road, repeating for the main what others have in the same homely manner done before them: It hath been my task to denote some new Faculty or Science, that others have not yet discovered; this the Reader will quickly discern by those new Terms of Art which he shall meet withal throughout this whole Volume. Some things I have inserted of Carving and Sewing that I might demonstrate the whole Art. In the contrivance of these my labours, I have so managed them for the general good, that those whose Purses cannot reach to the cost of rich Dishes, I have descended to their meaner Expences, that they may give, though upon a sudden Treatment, to their Kindred, Friends, Allies and Acquaintance, a handsome and relishing entertainment in all seasons of the year, though at some distance from Towns or Villages. Nor have my serious considerations been wanting amongst direction for Diet how to order what belongs to the sick, as well as to those that are in health; and withal my care hath been such, that in this Book as in a Closet, is contained all such Secrets as relate to Preserving, Conserving, Candying, Distilling, and such rare varieties as they are most concern'd in the best husbandring and huswifering of them. Nor is there any Book except that of the Queens Closet, which was so enricht with Receipts presented to her Majesty, as yet that I ever saw in any Language, that ever contained so many profitable Experiences, as in this Volume: in all which the Reader shall find most of the Compositions, and mixtures easie to be prepared, most pleasing to the Palate, and not too chargeable to the Purse; since you are at liberty to employ as much or as little therein as you please.