Lecture 21: Elizabethan England, Puritans, Country Food

the continent, developed its dining traditions closely tied to the

stately manor and its produce. Cookbooks refl ect this difference;

the ingredients and procedures are simpler, and the dishes tend to

be more traditional.

 England was still profoundly infl uenced by dining customs

abroad, but the constant pull between native and foreign, simple

and complex, royal and bourgeois would continue to give English

cookery two different faces. The fact that many cookbooks address

a middle-class audience also makes them quite different from other

European works.

England in the Late 17th Century

 The fi rst crop of cookbooks published after the Restoration was

thoroughly courtly. The fi rst of these, The Accomplisht Cook by

Robert May, is one of the longest and most detailed of 17th-century

To Make a Potato Pie

F

rom William Rabisha’s The Whole Body of Cookery

Dissected of 1661, the following recipe is a good example of

how new ingredients were appropriated in traditional recipes

and garnished with a strange mixture of local and exotic items. The

effect is very much Baroque.

Boyl your Spanish Potatoes (not overmuch) cut them forth in

slices as thick as your thumb, season them with Nutmeg, Cinamon,

Ginger, and Sugar; your Coffi n being ready, put them in, over the

bottom; add to them the Marrow of about three Marrow-bones,

seasoned as aforesaid, a handful of stoned Raisons of the Sun, some

quartered Dates, Orangado, Cittern (citron), with Ringo-roots

sliced, put butter over it, and bake them: let their lear be a little

Vinegar, Sack and Sugar, beaten up with the yolk of an Egg, and

a little drawn butter; when your pie is enough, pour it in, shake it

together, scrape on Sugar, garnish it, and serve it up.