towel upon your tablecloth, and set down your basin and ewer before your sovereign, and take the ewer in your hand, and give them water. Then avoid your basin and ewer, and fold the board cloth together with your towel therein, and so take them off the board. And when your sovereign shall wash, set your towel on the left hand of him, and the water before you at dinner or supper; if it be to bedward, set up your basin and towel on the board again. And if your master will have any conceits after dinner, as apples, nuts or cream, then lay forth a towel on the board, and set thereon a loaf or two, see that ye have your trenchers and spoons in a readiness if need require, then serve forth your master well, and so take it up again with a voider. HUGH RHODES, The Booke of Nurture 1568 Forks Here I will mention a thing that might have been spoken of before, in discourse of the first Italian town. I observed a custom in all those Italian cities and towns through the which I passed, that is not used in any other country that I saw in my travels, neither do I think that any other nation of Christendom doth use it, but only Italy. The Italians, and also most strangers that are commorant in Italy, do always at their meals use a little fork when they cut their meat. For while with their knife, which they hold in one hand, they cut the meat out of the dish, they fasten their fork which they hold in their other hand upon the same dish, so that whatsoever he be that, sitting in the company of any others at meal, should unadvisedly touch the dish of meat with his fingers from which all at the table do cut, he will give occasion of offence unto the company, as having transgressed the laws of good manners, in so much that for his error he shall be at the least brow-beaten if not reprehended in words. This form of feeding I understand is generally used in all places of Italy, their forks being for the most part made of iron or steel, and some of silver, but those are used only by gentlemen. The reason of this their curiosity is, because the Italian cannot by any means endure to have his dish touched with fingers, seeing all men's fingers are not alike clean. Hereupon I myself thought good to imitate the Italian fashion by this forked cutting of meat, not only while I was in Italy, but also in Germany, and oftentimes in England since I came home: being once quipped for that frequent using of my fork by a certain learned gentleman, a familiar friend of mine, one Mr Laurence Whitaker, who in his merry humour doubted not to call me at table furcifer, only for using a fork at feeding, but for no other cause. THOMAS CORYAT, Crudities 1611 Hospitality For time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And farewell goes out sighing. Troilus and Cressida, III. iii. 165-169 This true noble hearted fellow is to be dignified and honoured, wheresoever he keeps house. It's thought that pride, puritans, coaches and covetousness hath caused him to leave our land. There are six upstart tricks come up in great houses of late which he cannot brook: peeping windows for the ladies to view what doings there are in the hall, a buttery hatch that's kept locked, clean tables and a French cook in the kitchen, a porter that locks the gates in dinner time, the decay of blackjacks in the cellar and blue-coats in the hall. He always kept his greatness by his charity: he loved three things, an open cellar, a full hall and a sweating cook: he always provided for three dinners, one for himself, another for his servants, the third for the poor. Any one may know where he kept house, either by the chimney's smoke, by the freedom at gate, by want of whirligig-jacks in the kitchen, by the fire in the hall or by the full furnished tables. He affects not London, Lent, lackeys or bailiffs. There are four sorts that pray for him, the poor, the passenger, his tenants, and servants. He is one that will not hoard up all nor lavishly spend all, he neither racks nor rakes his neighbours (they are sure of his company at church as well as at home), and gives his bounty as well to the preacher as to others whom he loves for his good life and doctrine. He had his wine came to him by full butts, but this age keeps her winecellar in little bottles. Lusty able men well maintained were his delight, with whom he would be familiar. His tenants knew 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. Capulet. How canst thou try them so? 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 sugar on the top of the meat, and upon the lid. And in this sort 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 |