Cookery and Confectionary.
London: Printed by B. Bensley...for W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, [1824]. First and only edition of what is apparently the author’s only publication. Additional engraved title-page and fourteen plates depicting various cooking apparatuses and techniques after the author’s own etchings. Spine very slightly toned, intermittent light staining, touching text but not affecting legibility. A very good copy of a scarce work. Three quarter modern red morocco over marbled boards, gilt-lettered spine in six compartments with raised bands. Twelvemo. xxiii, [1, blank], 213, [1, blank] pp. Item #16640
In his Preface, Cooke touts the “very great superiority of the present volume over the various attempts that have preceded it” and makes “precepts so obvious as to supersede the necessity of practice” (p. 3). Cookery and Confectionary is superior to all other culinary books given that its author has “specified, not only the measure or quantity of each article, but – as far as it could be done with any certainty – [has] set down the requisite time for the cooking of each dish, whether plain or compounded. This is altogether a novel feature in a work like the present, and which need only be mentioned for its utility to be obvious” (p. vi). Cookery contains numerous recipes, including instructions for preparing mutton pie, roast pigeons, apple jelly, Spanish puffs, boiled eel, pepper cake, and a variety of other such dishes.
Price: $1,250.00