The Experienced English Housekeeper

"This book was first published in 1769 in Manchester. Its author was a lady called Mrs Elizabeth Raffald. She was a confectioner and housekeeper and also ran a registry for servants, like an employment exchange. Her cookery book is one of the most original of its period, and it’s one of the great English cookery books. I rate it very highly myself – it’s certainly much more important than Jamie Oliver’s books. It’s very readable, and every single recipe in it works – she’s obviously tested them. And they are her own recipes. I’ve replicated many of them. The editor of the Equinox edition of this book, Roy Shipperbottom, who was a close friend of mine, tried every single one of them before it was published, and found that they all worked perfectly – hundreds of recipes. Nearly all of them are, yes. One or two are difficult – she deals with things like turtle soup, which is not a thing you can do nowadays. Of all the 18th century cookery books, her book is probably the one that would appeal to modern taste more than any other. It’s a universally good book, and much more original than Mrs Beeton – yet most English people would never have heard of her, and she deserves to be better known."