The Indian Cookery Book: A Practical Handbook to the Kitchen in India, Adapted to the Three Presidencies; Containing Original and Approved Recipes in Every Department of Indian Cookery; Recipes for Summer Beverages and Home-made Liqueurs; Medicinal & other Recipes; Together with a Variety of Things Worth Knowing. By a Thirty-five Years' Resident.

First edition of this evocative practical guide to the culinary arts of India, clearly intended for use either by the head of the household or the head of their domestic staff. The title proved popular, a sixth edition recorded as late as 1944. The author, whose identity remains unknown, provides detailed advice on kitchen management and equipment, including a useful calendar of "such articles of consumption as are procurable monthly in the Calcutta daily bazaar". They offer recipes for "rice or chowl", "pellow or pooloo" curries, "burtas or mashes", soups, fish, joints, puddings, "Indian pickels, chutnees, sauces", preserves, and medicinal and cosmetic recipes ("Quinine Draught"; "Indian Mode of Preparing Perfumed Oils"). The dishes embrace local ingredients, spices, and methods, though the compiler sometimes adds notes of caution: "Pellows are purely Hindoostanee dishes. There are several kinds of pellow, but some of them are so entirely of an Asiatic character and tastes that no European will ever be persuaded to partake of them" (p. 12). Among the home-made liqueurs are "pink noyau", "Mint Beer", "Imperial Pop", and "The Commander in Chief." Concluding sections of "miscellaneous useful recipes" and "things worth knowing" discuss how to repair glass or china, clean gloves, and freshen stale bread. Several ruled leaves have directions added in contemporary hands. These address the method for boiling rice, provide an additional curry recipe, and offer remedies for scorpion bites and dysentery. Bitting, p. 567. Octavo. Interleaved as issued with ruled sheets. Original brown cloth, printed title label on front cover. 1872 ownership signature on front free endpaper, similar signature at head of table of contents; recent bookseller's ticket. Binding stained and somewhat worn from kitchen use, front inner hinge stabilized, couple of leaves tipped back in: very good.…