Wyvern Pseud (2 results)

Hardcover. List of other domestic economy publications on the front and rear endpapers with prices for credit and cash. Moderate wear and darkening. Very good.

Hard Cover. (Madras, Higginbotham & Co, and London: Richardson and Co 1885). Fifth Edition. 8º. x + i (un-numbered) + 552 pp (possibly missing page 553 the last page of the index?) Rebound likely in the twentieth century. Binding faded. Contents clean. A crease to the corner of page 65. About VG. Wyvern 'was a Colonel in the Indian Army, long resident in Madras, who whiled away his spare time writing about cookery in the Madras Athenaeum and Daily News. The upshot of his interesting hobby was this book, which set out to instruct the memsahibs of the day in the best ways to cope with Indian kitchen staff and cooking arrangements and in how to produce decent English and French food with local ingredients and imported supplies. Elizabeth David was an admirer of the Colonel, praising his Culinary Jottings for Madras particularly in her study Spices, Salts and Aromatics in the English Kitchen. This, the fifth edition, is important as Wyvern had included a fascinating essay on Indian kitchens, which for some reason was dropped for the seventh edition. An interesting period piece from the "High Noon" of the British Empire in India. "It is not a mere recipe book but a serious cookery book of, and in the style of, the times with the author going into enormous detail on getting every step just right. Wyvern has a rambling, person to person style and sometimes bludgeons you with detail, but the book makes first class reading as an amusing diversion. Especially to be commended are Wyvern's fulminations on the cussedness of Ramasamy and Meenakshi (the Madras equivalent of Joe and Jane), his generic names for all Indian cooks". (Sudarshan). Photographs/scans available upon request.