Seventeenth-century English recipe books: cooking, physic and chirurgery in the works of Elizabeth Talbot Grey and Aletheia Talbot Howard

Abstract

"The texts reprinted in 'Seventeenth-Century English Recipe Books' allow us to reconstruct the history of recipes, both medical and culinary, from the mid-16th to mid-17th century, and situate that history withing the larger scientific and intellectual practices of the period. Recipe books are a key part of food history; they register the ideals and practices of domestic work, physical health and sustenance and they are at the heart of material culture as it was experienced by early modern Englishwomen. In a world in which daily sustenance and physical health were primarily women's responsibilities, women were central to these texts that record what was both a traditional art and new science. The texts reprinted in these two volumes allow readers to reconstruct the history of recipes, both medical and culinary, from the mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth century, and situate that history within the larger scientific and intellectual practices of the period."--

Contents

A choice manual, or, Rare and selected secrets in physick and chyrurgery, collected and practised by the right honorable, the Countesse of Kent, late deceased (1653) / Elizabeth Grey, Countess of Kent (probable author) -- Natura extenterata, or, Nature unbowelled by the most exquisite anatomizers of her, wherein are contained, her choicest secrets digested into receipts, fitted for the cure of all sorts of infirmities, whether internal or external, acute or chronical, that are incident to the body of man (1655) / Alethea Talbot, Countess of Arundel (probable author)