when they saw him, for he kept the old fashion, good, commendable, plain. The poor about him wore upon their backs; but now since his death, landlords wear and waste their tenants upon their backs in French or Spanish fashions. Well, we can say that once such a charitable practitioner there was, but now he's dead, to the grief of all England: and 'tis shrewdly suspected that he will never rise again in our climate. DONALD LUPTON, London and the Countrey carbonadoed 1632 The Kitchen Capulet. Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks. Servant. You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they can lick their fingers. Servant. Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me. Romeo and Juliet, IV. ii. 2-8 Marry, sir, she's the kitchen-wench, and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to but to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light. I warrant her rags and the tallow in them will burn a Poland winter; if she lives till doomsday, she'll burn a week longer than the whole world. The Comedy of Errors, 111. ii. 97-103 The Ideal Cook It resteth now that I proceed unto cookery itself, which is the dressing and ordering of meat in good and wholesome manner; to which, when our housewife shall address herself, she shall well understand, that these qualities must ever accompany it: first, she must be cleanly both in body and garments, she must have a quick eye, a curious nose, a perfect taste and a ready ear. She must not be butter-fingered, sweet-toothed nor faint-hearted; for the first will let everything fall, the second will consume what it should increase, and the last will lose time with too much niceness. GERVASE MARKHAM, The English Hus-wife 1615 The kitchen is his hell, meat and he fry together. from the fat of the land, and A Cook and he the devil in it, where his His revenues are showered down he interlards his own grease among to help the drippings. Choleric he is, not by nature so much as his art, and it is a shrewd temptation that the chopping knife is so near. His weapons ofter offensive are a mess of hot broth and scalding water, and woe be to him that comes in his way. In the kitchen he will domineer and rule the roast, in spite of his master, and curses is the very dialect of his calling. His labour is mere blustering and fury, and his speech like that of sailors in a storm, a thousand businesses at once; yet in all this tumult he does not love combustion, but will be the first man that shall go and quench it. He is never good Christian till a hissing pot of ale has slaked him, like water cast on a firebrand, and for that time he is tame and dispossessed. His cunning is not small in architecture, for he builds strange fabrics in paste, towers and castles, which are offered to the assault of valiant teeth, and like Darius his palace, in one banquet demolished. He is a pitiless murderer of innocents, and he mangles poor fowls with unheard of tortures, and it is thought the martyrs' persecutions were devised from hence; sure we are Saint Lawrence his gridiron came out of his kitchen. His best faculty is at the dresser, where he seems to have great skill in the tactics, ranging his dishes in order military and placing with great discretion in the fore-front meats more strong and hardy, and the more cold and cowardly in the rear, as quaking tarts, and quivering custards, and such milk-sop dishes which scape many times the fury of the encounter. But now the second course is gone up, and he down into the cellar, where he drinks and sleeps till four o'clock in the afternoon, and then returns again to his regiment. JOHN EARLE, Micro-cosmographie 1628 An Elizabethan mince-pie Take a leg of mutton, and cut the best of the best flesh from the bone, and parboil it well: then put to it three pound of the best mutton suet, and shred it very small: then spread it abroad, and season it with pepper and salt, cloves and mace: then put in good store of currants, great raisins and prunes, clean washed and picked, a few dates sliced, and some orange-pills sliced: then being all well mixed together, put it into a coffin, or into divers coffins, and so bake them: and when they are served up, open the lids, and strew store of and upon the lid. And in this sort of the meat, sugar on the top you may also bake beef or veal; only the beef would not be parboiled, and the veal will ask a double quantity of suet. GERVASE MARKHAM, The English Hus-wife 1623 (2nd ed.) The Dairy Your cream being neatly and sweet kept, you shall churm or churn it on those usual days which are fittest either for your use in the house or the markets adjoining near unto you, according to the purpose for which you keep your dairy. Now the days most accustomably held amongst ordinary housewives, are Tuesday and Friday: Tuesday in the afternoon, to serve Wednesday morning market, and Friday morning to serve Saturday market; for Wednesday and Saturday are the most general market days of this kingdom, and Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, the usual fasting days of the week and so meetest for the use of butter. Now for churming, take your cream and through a strong and clean cloth strain it into the churn; and then covering the churn close, and setting it in a place fit for the action in which you are employed (as in the summer in the coolest place of your dairy), and exceeding early in the morning or very late in the evening, and in the winter in the warmest place of your dairy, and in the most temperate hours, as about noon or a little before or after, and so churn it, with swift strokes, marking the noise of the same which will be solid, heavy and entire, until you hear it alter, and the sound is light, sharp and more spirity: and then you shall say that your butter breaks, which perceived both by this sound, the lightness of the churn-staff, and the sparks and drops which will appear yellow about the lip of the churn, and cleanse with your hand both the lid and inward sides of the churn, and having put all together you shall cover the churn again, and then with easy strokes round, and not to the bottom, gather the butter together into one entire lump and body, leaving no pieces thereof several or unjoined. GERVASE MARKHAM, The English Hus-wife 1615 § 4. Sleep and Health The Bedroom The innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, The Valet's Duties When your master intendeth to bedward, see that ye have fire and candle sufficient and see ye have clean water in at night and in the morning: and if your master lie in fresh sheets, dry off the dankness by the fire. If he lie in a strange place, see his sheets be clean and sweet, and then fold down his bed, and warm his night kerchief, and see his house of office be clean, help off his clothing, and draw the curtains, and make sure the fire and candle, and avoid the dogs, and shut all the doors. And in the evening or in the morning, your master being alone, if ye have anything to say to him, then is good leisure and time to know his pleasure. In the morning if it be cold, make a fire, and have in clean water, bring him his petticoat warm, with his doublet, and all his apparel clean brushed, and his shoes made clean, and help to array him, truss his points, strike up his hosen clean, and set all thing clean and cleanly about him; give him good attendance, and in especial among strangers, for attendance doth please masters very well. Thus doing with diligence, God will prefer you to honour and good fortune. HUGH RHODES, The Booke of Nurture 1568 The Care of the Body (a physician's advice) To bedward be you merry or have merry company about you, so that to bedward no anger nor heaviness, sorrow nor pensivefulness, do trouble or disquiet you. To bedward and also in the morning, use to have a fire in your chamber, to waste and consume the evil vapours within the chamber, for the breath of man may putrify the air within the chamber: I do advertise you not to stand nor to sit by the fire, but stand or sit a good way off from the fire, taking the flavour of it, for fire doth arify and doth dry up a man's blood, and doth make stark the sinews and joints of man. In the night let the windows of your house, specially of your chamber, be closed. When you be in your bed, lie a little while on your left side, and sleep on your right side.... Let your nightcap be of scarlet, and this, I do advertise you, to cause to be made a good thick quilt of cotton, or else of pure flocks or of clean wool, and let the covering of it be of white fustian, and lay it on the featherbed that you do lie on ; and in your bed lie not too hot nor too cold, but in a temperance. Old ancient doctors of physic saith eight hours of sleep in summer and nine in winter is sufficient for any man; but I do think the sleep ought to be taken as the complexion of man is. When you do rise in the morning, rise with mirth and remember God. Let your hosen be brushed within and without, and flavour the inside of them against the fire; use linen socks, or linen hosen next your legs: when you be out of your bed, stretch forth your legs and arms and your body, cough and spit.... you After you have evacuated your body and trussed your points, comb your head oft, and so do divers times in the day. And wash your hands and wrists, your face and eyes and your teeth, with cold water; and after that you be apparelled, walk in your garden or park, a thousand pace or two. And then great and noble men do use to hear mass, and other men that cannot do so, but must apply their business, doth serve God with some prayers, surrendering thanks to him for his manifold goodness, with asking mercy for their offences. And before go to your refection, moderately exercise your body with some labour, or playing at the tennis, or casting a bowl, or poising weights or plummets of lead in your hands, or some other thing, to open your pores, and to augment natural heat. At dinner and supper use not to drink sundry drinks, and eat not of divers meats: but feed of two or three dishes at the most. After that you have dined and supped, labour not by-and-by after, but make a pause, sitting or standing upright the space of an hour or more with some pastime: drink not much after dinner. At your supper, use light meats of digestion, and refrain from gross meats; go not to bed with a full nor an empty stomach. And after your supper make a pause ere you go to bed; and go to bed, as I said, with mirth. Andrew BOORDE, A Compendyous Regyment or a Dietary of helth 1542 |