Collecting antique cookery books

Reading that Sotheby’s are to sell a wonderful private cookery library on 15 July reminded me of the time I interviewed the brilliant Swiss chef Anton Mossiman (below) at his plush Belgravia restaurant. I wanted to know more about his huge collection of cookery books and had asked him to bring to the interview some of his favourite volumes. I was not prepared for the treasures that he lay before me on the table. These included an edition dated 1507 of Der Kuchenmeister, the earliest cookery book ever printed, which was partly in Latin, partly in German.. He also showed me a first edition dated 1570 of one of the most attractive cookery books ever published--- the work of Bartolomeo Scappi, chef to Pope Pius V, which contains fascinating plates of cooking utensils. In all, Mosimann’s gastronomic library came to around 6,000 volumes, most of which he has placed at the service of the students on his training centre in Battersea.

Mosimann had been a dedicated collector since his training on the continent—where he had picked up early texts for a few francs--hence the European slant to his collection, and I suspect that the continent is still the place to look for very early cookery and medical texts. However, even on the continent, treasures like Scappi and Der Kuchenmeister are rarely to be found outside libraries, and in the unlikely event of copies turning up for sale, would fetch five figure sums. Most 16th century and seventeenth century cookery books in English are also expensive, with Robert May’s The Accomplisht Cook (1660), which won praise from Elizabeth David and Frances Bissel, making more that £4,000 at auction a few years ago. Doubtless the demand from well heeled celebrity chefs has pushed up prices. For a collector with a more modest pocket the place to start is the early eighteenth century-- a time of peace and plenty when a burgeoning middle class loved to stage elaborate dinner parties.

But generally you should forget manuscript books of recipes. Mosimann found original material in them, but many recipes were copied from printed books and most manuscripts are dominated by home remedies for the bite of a dog or the bloody flux. It’s all a bit folk-lorist . I’ve looked at a lot of these cookery manuscripts and most are no better than that most boring of documents, the common-place book of some bored cleric or unmarried daughter of a Georgian landowner. Instead look out for the big names of the Georgian and Victorian period—Hannah Glasse, Sarah Harrison, Eliza Smith , Mrs Rundell, Eliza Acton, William Kitchener, Francatelli, Mrs Beeton.

To Mosimann and many others Hannah Glasse is a classic. Fifty editions of her Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1746) were published in the 18th century alone and early editions are always pricey at £700 upwards. And although Glasse’s predecessor, Eliza Smith, bulks up her Compleat Housewife (1739) with 190 pages of home remedies and suchlike, a first will still set you back around £600, while the Kegan Paul reprint of 2005 is listed on the Net at a dyspeptic $200. Another early Georgian, Sarah Harrison, is worth seeking out for her tips on preserves and sauces. I was lucky enough to be given my copy of the sixth edition (1755) by a friend, but much as I appreciate the gift I cannot understand why Dombey & Son are charging £1,040 for a book of such modest length. Mrs Rundell, a much more voluminous writer, whose Modern Domestic Cookery by a ‘Lady’ (1806) reached 65 editions in 35 years, isn’t anything like expensive. I bought my early Victorian edition for just £3.50 in the nineties, and at present Roe and Moore have a second edition for a piffling £28.



Most cookery writers of the 18th and 19th centuries are female, but there are some outstanding male writers too. Charles Carter was a contemporary of Glasse’s, but his Complete Practical Cook (1730) is now, according to one Suffolk dealer, who wants a tasty £3,800 for his copy, ‘ very scarce ‘. Then there is William Kitchener, a doctor, with a doctor’s no-nonsense attitude. He was primarily interested in the working of the digestive system and his scientific take on cookery made his Cook’s Oracle(1817) an instant hit ( eight editions before 1830) . In some ways, he was the Heston Blumenthal of Regency England. He was also unusual it that he named particular grocers in London as sources for ingredients. I paid £6 for my copy, but today expect to shell out at least £100 for an edition from the 1820s onwards. Eliza Acton probably deserves to be called the greatest English cook and the prices match her status. Jonkers have a first of her Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845) at £955, but later editions ( five within one year ) are much cheaper. Acton offered homely fare, something Charles Francatelli, chef to Queen Victoria and author of The Modern Cook (1846) would have disdained. My copy is almost mint---not a single gravy stain-- which suggests that for some readers Francatelli was more suited to fantasy bed-time reading, than practical use Of the equally voluminous Mrs Beeton, who lived under a racecourse pavilion and died at 29—not a lot needs to be said here, except that a first of her Household Management (1861) can be had for a surprisingly modest £500, though those countless late editions that crowd the cookery sections of second hand booksellers should cost no more than a few quid . [ R.M.Healey]

Thanks Robin, wise and timely words as always. I mentioned earlier the story of the great cookery book library that I didn't get...Sometime in the 1980s I was called to a house in the Belgravia /Chelsea area to offer on a a load of books. They belonged to a pleasant person called Felicité Gwynne who was then manager of the exclusive Chelsea bookshop Sandoes. I remember walking along the hall past rows of fabulous cookbooks including what seemed hundreds of 18th century and earlier tomes in limpid contemporary bindings. I mentally punched the air as there are few things that sell faster or more easily. I was whisked up to her quarters in the attic and asked 'What about those cookery books?' - Felicité politely informed me 'Oh those are my sisters and are not for sale--she's Elizabeth David you know...'

Meanwhile here is a recipe for a Yorkshire Pudding from The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy, by Hannah Glasse, 1747. Serious calories. It is from the excellent Jane Austen Centre site and even has a video demonstration of how to make this gastronomic delight.

Take a quart of milk, four eggs, and a little salt, make it up into a thick batter. You must have a good piece of meat at the fire; take a stew-pan and put some dripping in, set it on the firel when it boils, pour in your pudding; let it back on the fire till you think it is nigh enough, then turn a plate upside down in the dripping pan, that the drippings may not be blacked; set your stew-pan on it under your meat and let the dripping dorp on the pudding, and the heat of the fire come to it to make itself a fine brown. When your meat is done and sent to table, drain all the fat from your pudding, and set it on the fire again to dry a little; then slide it as dray as you can into a dish; melt some butter, and pour it into a cup and set it in the middle of the pudding. It is an excellent pudding; the grave of the meat eats well with it.

Curries by Mulk Raj Anand, 1932

Mulk Raj Anand. CURRIES AND OTHER INDIAN DISHES. Desmond Harmsworth, London 1932.

Current Selling Prices
$80-$200 /£50-£140

COOKERY
This is a book that I used to see in almost any respectable cookery collection- it would go for less than £10 and a little more if nice in jacket because it was, after all, an early work by the mildly collected Indian writer. Now all is changed; at present there are only 5 copies online priced between £50 and £150, the latter price, as always, for the poorest copy ('standard used condition.')

An early work on the subject. Indian restaurants were rare in England in the 1930s. The only one I can trace is the still extant Veeraswamy's (established in 1926 off Regent Street 'by the great grandson of an English General, and an Indian princess.') A customer recalls going there in the 1940s when it was full of Colonel Blimps and an electric Punka was in operation. A current photo of its interior (below) reveals an opulent and sedate dining area, not suitable for poppadum frenzy or vindaloo excess. In America Indian restaurants were uncommon until the 1980s. I recall that there was not a single Indian curry to be had in Los Angeles in 1975; there may be now as may as a 100 such restaurants in the city and the suburbs of L.A.

Our author gives the names of two London suppliers of all the ingredients used in the book - Stembridge in Cecil Court (now a great book street) and C.A. Naidu in Lexington Street, Soho. Anand begins with a tribute to that grand man 'Uncle' Norman Douglas:-

'...with that subtle irony and happy wit characteristic of him, Mr. Norman Douglas once declared that "Curry is India's greatest contribution to mankind." Those whose lucky star has bought them under the spell of Mr. Douglas will understand the sense in which that epigram is true. I laughed heartily when I read the statement...'

Mulk Raj Anand also quotes Aleister Crowley, another great gourmet, with a more generous assessment of Curry power:-

'...Curries with their vast partitioned platter of curious condiments to lackey them, speak for themselves. They sting like serpents, stimulate like strychnine; they are subtle, sensual like Chinese courtesans, sublime and sacred, inscrutably inspiring and intelligently illuminating, like Cambodian carvings.'

In the matter of the deadly poison strychnine, which the Great Beast appears to have imbibed, Wikipedia notes 'small doses of strychnine were once used in medications as a stimulant, a laxative and as a treatment for other stomach ailments...'



Here is a simple recipe from this interesting book:-

DAL (LENTILS)
1/2 lb. lentils
1/2 oz. butter
1 small onion (sliced)
1/2 teaspoonful of black pepper
1/2 teaspoonfulred pepper
1/2 teaspoonful powdered turmeric
Salt to tatse.

Carefully pick the stones out of the dal and soak for about an hour in a panful of cold water.
Put it to boil in a panful of boiled water. Sprinkle in some salt and turmeric and stir.
When the lentils are tender, fry the sliced onion in melted butter with black and red pepper in a different pan. Pour this fried mixture into the pan containing the dal to the consistency of porridge over a gentle heat. Take care while putting in the butter to keep the lid partly on so that the liquid does not fly back to your face and hands.

A simple dal that might be improved with frying a small amount of cumin seeds and some chopped garlic. The orange dal needs no soaking, but some lentils require much longer than an hour and stones can still be found. To be continued with a consideration of other curry book values including the 'Glasgow Good Curry Guide' from 1988 priced at a spicy £400...

Elizabeth David. A Book of Mediterranean Food. 1950

Elizabeth David. A BOOK OF MEDITERRANEAN FOOD. John Lehmann Ltd. London, 1950.

Current Selling Prices
$550-$1400 /£280-£700

COOK BOOK
Elizabeth David's first book came out at a time when cookery was at an all time low in Britain. Even olive oil was rare and she advised readers that it could be found at chemists (where it was sold in small bottles for the treatment of aching muscles.) There is a scene in the recent TV biopic of her life where, in the late 1940s she is sitting in a provincial hotel having dinner with a lover, and is brought an inedible plate of soup that resembled the paste used to hang wallpaper. Such scenes are now less common in England- something due largely to her efforts. The film also emphasised something new to me--she had a sort of mentor- the great expat Capri based writer Norman Douglas. She hung out with him during the winter of 1939-40 in Antibes. It was Douglas who taught her 'how to search out the best, insist on it and reject all that was bogus and second-rate'. And his injunction, 'Always do as you please and send everybody to hell and take the consequences. Damned good rule of life...' was one she took passionately to heart. Norman Douglas was also a great influence on the fabulous Nancy Cunard - she wrote a book on him ('Grand Man.')

A breakthrough book. A great and influential book acknowledged now by many celebrated cooks. Unashamedly literary 'A Book of Mediterranean Food' stills stands up today as an inspiring collection of recipes from France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Greece and Egypt. Best of all they can be cooked from, something not always true of recipes. Alice Waters, of Chez Panisse, said "When I go back and read her book now...I feel I plagiarized them. All of it seeped in so much, it's embarrassing to read them now." Even Jamie Oliver pays homage to her and the food at the River Cafe where he started was partly inspired by her cooking.

VALUE? A difficult book to find as a true 1950 first in its colourful John Minton 10/6 jacket. I have seen copies as much as a thousand pounds but certainly a decent clean copy with no chips to the jacket would be catalogued at £500. Used copies in slightly worn jackets can be had at around £300. Even sans jacket it can make just over £100. In 1987 Dorling Kindersley put out a signed limited edition of her 'French Country Cooking' limited to 450 signed copies, this can command £200+ and seems unaccountably scarce- presumably it was bought at the time by well heeled foodies and they are jealously holding on to it -such is the reverence that Elizabeth David inspires.

Sometime in the 1980s I was called to a posh house in the Belgravia /Chelsea area to offer on a a load of books. They belonged to a pleasant person called Felicité Gwynne who was then manager of the cult Chelsea bookshop Sandoes. I remember walking along the hall past rows of fabulous cookbooks including what seemed hundreds of 18th century cookbooks. I mentally punched the air as there are few things that sell faster or more easily than antiquarian cook books. I was whisked up to the attic and asked 'What about those cook books?' - Felicité politely informed me 'Oh those are my sisters and are not for sale--she's Elizabeth David you know...' You win some, you lose some. As I recall Felicité had some bloody good books including a lot of Mervyn Peake...