Tag: English Cookery
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The French Origins of Hannah Glasse’s ‘Fried Chicken’ Recipe
1747 saw the publication in London of the first edition of the English cookery writer Hannah Glasse’s book The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. Glasse’s book quickly gained huge popularity, both in England and in the British colonies of North America. In her book, Glasse rails against the upper-class English obsession with French cuisine…
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Tracing the Origins of Mary Randolph’s ‘Fried Chickens’ Recipe
Mary Randolph, author of the seminal Southern cookery book, The Virginia Housewife (1824), was raised in an environment in which English culinary influences were strong. Indeed, she was arguably, at core, an English cook. Many writers gloss over this rather obvious fact, and certain dishes in Randolph’s book are regularly highlighted because they stand out as antecedents…
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Mary Randolph’s English Cookery
The Virginia Housewife (first published in 1824) – authored by the slave-owning white antebellum Virginian, Mary Randolph – is widely considered to constitute the earliest printed example of a ‘Southern’ cookery book. Randolph came from one of the elite families of Virginia, which traced its roots in the South to the union of William and…
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The History of Devil(l)ed Eggs: From Britain to the South
The idea of ‘devilling’ food first became popular in the early 19th century, and is particularly associated with the culinary trends of Britain. Early references can be found, for example, in Esther Copley’s The Cook’s Complete Guide (London, 1810). Copley offers a ‘compound piquante sauce’ which, she writes, ‘is appropriate to devils of all orders’. The sauce in question…
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On the Supposed Southern Origins of Cheese Straws: A Myth Debunked
Cheese straws are much-loved in the Southern United States. Indeed, the renowned baker Johnnie Gabriel (of Atlanta, Georgia) states that cheese straws are ‘Southern to the bone’. Yet, cheese straws also have a long history in England. Cheese straws are generally accepted to have originated in England and made their way to the United States, settling in the…
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Hot Peppers and Hot Sauces in the English Cookery of the 17th to 19th Centuries
Hot peppers – capsicums – were introduced to England from Spain in the 16th century, and were growing in England by 1548.[1] Looking at 17th century English books, a number of references to ‘Guinea peppers’ and cayenne pepper appear, with an early example being found in John Parkinson’s Paradisi in sole Paradisus Terrestris (1629).[2] In…
EDMUND STANDING 