The English housekeeper, or, Manual of domestic management: containing advice on the conduct of household affairs and practical instructions ... Together with remarks on the best means of rendering assistance to poor neighbours; hints for laying out small ornamental gardens, and directions for cultivating herbs. The whole being intended for the use of young ladies who undertake the superintendence of their own housekeeping.

  • Cobbett, Anne, 1795-1877.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The English housekeeper, or, Manual of domestic management: containing advice on the conduct of household affairs and practical instructions ... Together with remarks on the best means of rendering assistance to poor neighbours; hints for laying out small ornamental gardens, and directions for cultivating herbs. The whole being intended for the use of young ladies who undertake the superintendence of their own housekeeping. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    speaking of, fared sumptuously for three days. There were, among other things, the finest poultry and the most delicate pastry imaginable. But some chicken broth was wanted, for an invalid of our party ; and the landlord suggested that if Mademoiselle would herself give directions to the cook, the broth might, perhaps, be the better made; and he went, accordingly, to announce my intended visit to the important person who commanded in the kitchen. Upon receiving intimation that all was ready, I descended, and was introduced to the said cook, who met me at the door of a large, lofty, vaulted apart- j ment, the walls of which were black, not from any effect of antiquity, but from those of modern smoke, and deco- rated with a variety of copper utensils, all nearly as black, on their outsides, as the walls on which they hung. Of what hue their insides might be, I did not ascertain, and, at the moment, my attention was suddenly diverted by the cook, who, begging me to be seated, placed a chair for my accommodation by the side of a large, wild-looking fire- place. I had not expected to see a tall, thin and bony, or a short and fat old woman, like the cook of an English kitchen; I imagined a man, somewhat advanced in age, and retaining some traces of the ancien regime, with large features and a small body, with grizzly and half- powdered hair, and, perhaps, a pigtail; at all events, with slippers down at heel, hands unclean, and a large snuff box. It was, therefore, not without surprise that I found the very contrary of this in the personage who, dressed in j a white apron, white sleeves, and white night cap of unexceptionable cleanness, and bowing with a grace that would have done credit to the most accomplished petit mditre of the last century, proceeded to relate how he had been instructed in the art of making chicken broth by an English Miledi, who in passing into Italy for the benefit of her health, had staid some weeks at the Hotel de l’Europe. His detail of the process of broth-making was minute, and no doubt scientific, but unhappily for the narrator, it was interrupted by his producing a delicate white fowl, which he without ceremony laid on the kitchen table, which stood in the middle of the room, and rivalled the very walls themselves in blackness. I was assured, by the first glance at this table, by reason of the fragments of