Home › Old English Dishes › Old English Dishes (Age reader In this respect it)

Old English Dishes (Age reader In this respect it)

age reader. In this respect it differs largely from the olden works on gardening, through whose leaves still wantons the breeze of June, and chaffinch, cushat, and throstle sing. The fact is, it requires a master to render even a modern culinary treatise entertaining; the majority of ancient cook-books are for the most part mere curiosities. There is no Andrew Marvell of eating, or Parkinson of dining. "The reflection that appreciates, applied to the science that improves," as M. de Borose has aptly defined gastronomy, is a comparatively recent product, an outcome of advancement and civilising influences, and therefore it is hardly to be looked for in primitive compilations.

A poetical cook-book might have been composed by Walton had he devoted as much attention to the saucepans as he did to the rod; for the "Compleat Angler" shows him to have been fond of a good repast as it was then understood, even to preparing the fish himself with the limited conveniences available at the Thatched House. As it is, some of his numerous recipes and his allusions to barley-wine are poetical in an eminent degree, and cause one to regret that he is not also the author of a "Compleat Housewife." No modern, it is true, would wish to experiment with his prescripts for cooking trout and chavender, unless by proxy; like most of the recipes of the olden school, they are infinitely more amusing to read than they would prove pleasing to savour.