The Whole Body of Cookery Dissected, Taught, and Fully Manifested, Methodically, Artificially, and According to the Best Tradition of the English, French, Italian, Dutch, &c. or, A Sympathy of all Varieties in Natural Compounds in that Mystery

Rabisha, William

ISBN 10: 1903018110 / ISBN 13: 9781903018118

Published by Prospect Books, Totnes, 2003

About this Item

2003. New edition - facsimile of the 1682 edition. 389pp. The restoration of King Charles II in 1660 saw many chefs and servants of the returning nobility back at their stoves. William Rabisha was Master Cook to many honourable families before and after the wars began. Although little is known about his life and career, he was evidently brought up in the service of a noble household, which spared not cost in his instruction and education. He left Britain during the Commonwealth and worked at the Royal court while it was in exile. His cookery book went through five editions in the twenty years after its first publication and the present volume is a facsimile of the 1682 printing. It includes a new foreword by Tom Jaine and a glossary. The book is bound in the original dark blue boards with gold titling on the spine. The book is in excellent condition and the contents are tight and clean with no inscription. The unclipped dustwrapper is in excellent condition with light shelf and is in an easily removed clear plastic protective cover.

Seller Inventory # gCookery21

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Whole Body of Cookery Dissected, Taught, and Fully Manifested, Methodically, Artificially, and According to the Best Tradition of the English, French, Italian, Dutch, &c. or, A Sympathy of all Varieties in Natural Compounds in that Mystery
• Publisher: Prospect Books, Totnes
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1903018110
• ISBN 13: 9781903018118
• Binding: Hardback
• Edition: New Edition
• Condition: Very Good Plus
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good Plus
• Seller catalogs:
  • Cookery

About this title

Synopsis

The restoration of King Charles II in 1660 saw many chefs and servants of the returning nobility back at their stoves cooking as if the Civil War had never occurred. William Rabisha was 'Master Cook to many honourable Families before and since the wars began'; 'His Broths, Pottages, to the taste and sight, would Esau-like, make some to sell their right.' Although little is known about his life and career, he was evidently brought up in the service of a noble household, which 'spared no cost or charge' in his instruction and education. He left Britain during the Commonwealth and evidently worked at the Royal court while it was in exile.

His cookery book went through five editions and this current volume is a facsimile of the 1682 printing. The text is a remarkable statement of the art of cookery as it was in the 1660s, and proved to be surprisingly influential over a very long period: there are examples of wholesale borrowing from his recipes as late as the middle of the eighteenth century. Of course, he himself was not innocent of light-fingered loans from earlier authors as well as using his book for conservative, revivalist ends. Hence his recycling of a treatise on carving that started its life in the fifteenth century, and his printing of an order of feasting from that same period. All this was so 'that thou maist see what Liberality and Hospitality there was in Antient times amongst our Progenitors: Thus hoping to see Liberality flourish amongst us once more, as in old time'. The modern cook will find plenty to amuse, from making a 'broth or pottage called skink', trotter pie, a quince cream, a lamprey eel pie, or how to fry primrose leaves with eggs.