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Old English Dishes: Housekeeper

Mary Smith's Compleat Housekeeper, 1772.

Sarah Harrison's Housekeeper's Pocket-Book, 1777.

Mrs. Fisher's Prudent Housewife, 1788.

Dr. Stark's Dietetical Experiments, 1788.

Mrs. Carter's Frugal Housewife, 1810.

Mrs. Powel's Art of Cookery, 1811.

Mrs. Price's New Book of Cookery, 1813.

The School of Good Living, 1814.

Young's Epicure, 1815.

Haslehurst's Family Friend, 1816.

Chamber's Ladies' Best Companion, 1820.

Here are manuals enough, in all conscience, to have produced a progressive cuisine, were not the majority a repetition of the crudities and barbarisms of their antecedents, where one heresy was passed on to be augmented by another author, and by him transmitted to his successors. Essentially differing from France, England was unblessed with originality, and not until the influence of the splendid restaurants of the Parisian capital had extended across the Channel did the Briton awaken from his lethargy and cease to see through Mrs. Glasse and Mrs. Smith darkly. Then Ude and Kitchener, Francatelli, Walker, and Soyer appeared, to pave the way for a better condition of cookery in the kingdom.