"The Art of Cookery" is the only books of its kind to have come out of an English religious community. It is also that very rare thing, a cookery book of the English 18th-century that has the author's own recipes throughout; nothing seems to have been plagiarized or borrowed from other writers. The Dean of Durham Cathedral, who employed the author, had a lavish grant for entertaining and his generous hospitality meant that his cook had to cater for all levels of society, from canons of the Cathedral with sophisticated tastes such as the gourmand Dr. Jacque Sterne, to tradesmen, poor widows, and those of even more modest status. Thacker's book keeps many pre-Reformation recipes and thus shows the gradual transition in the Cathedral's eating habits. This facsimilie is introduced by the well-known food historian Ivan Day who examines the recipes and reveals the remarkable tradition of ecclesiastical hospitality that survived at Durham for more than eight hundred years.

About the Author
Ivan Day is a food historian with a special interest in re-creating the food of the past in period settings. His work has been exhibited in many major museums, including The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Paul Getty Museum, Waddesdon Manor, Fairfax House and the Museum of London. He was curator of Royal Sugar Sculpture (2002) at the Bowes Museum and the author of the exhibition catalogue. His other books include The Pleasures of the Table with Peter Brown (1998), and Eat, Drink and be Merry (editor, 2000).


Book Information
ISBN 9781870962209
Author John Thacker
Format Hardback
Page Count 358
Imprint Southover Press
Publisher Equinox Publishing Ltd