The Art of Cookery is so wonderful, Glasse has even including a menu “For Lent, or a fast dinner”.
Here are some of her recommendations:
A green pea soup
Onion soup
Eel soup
Crawfish soup
Rice pot
Apple fritters
Ms. Glasse recommends spices, butter and fat for most of her dishes. Nutmeg is featured prominently in sweet treats; cloves, mace, pepper, almonds and citrus peels in others.
I love her descriptions in this recipe for cream toasts: “Having two French rolls, cut them into slices as thick as your finger, crumb and crust together, lay them on a dish, put to them a pint of cream and half a pint of milk; strew them over with beaten cinnamon and sugar, turn them frequently till they are tender, but take care not to break them; then take them from the cream with the slice, break four o five eggs, turn your slices of bread in the eggs, and fry them in clarified butter. Make them of a good brown colour, but not black; scrape a little sugar over them. They may be served for a second course dish, but are fittest for supper.”
I imagine this makes a darn fine variation on French Toast.
And once you have finished your evening cooking, don’t forget to peruse the end pages of The Art of Cookery for “An approved method practiced by Mrs. Dukely, the queen’s tyre woman, to preserve hair and make it grow thick” or make “the finest lip salve in the world.”
The Appendix will also teach you how to “preserve tripe to go to the East Indies” and how to preserve just about anything.
that sounds like a lot of work , but I know it was a different time. I’m glad they have changed.