Modern Cookery for Private Families
Modern Cookery, in All Its Branches: Reduced to a System of Easy Practice, for the Use of Private Families. In a Series of Receipts, which Have Been Strictly Tested, and are Given with the Most Minute Exactness.
By Eliza Acton (1799-1859)
Introduction
Eliza Acton (1799–1859) began her writing career as a poet, but when her publisher advised her to write a cookbook (a type of literature much less prevalent than poetry during the Victorian Era), she undertook the momentous challenge. She worked on her cookbook for approximately ten years, from about 1835 until its publication in 1845, testing almost all of the many recipes within. Once published, Modern Cookery for Private Families proved as successful, if not more so, than her publisher had hoped: it provided Acton with a substantial amount of money and had multiple new editions published between 1845 and 1914 (Tonbridge Historical Society; Cook’s Info). Unfortunately, since the cookbook was so popular, it was plagiarized multiple times, and one successful cookbook published in 1861 (Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management) even used over one hundred of Acton’s recipes without her giving credit (Tonbridge Historical Society). In spite of this, Modern Cookery for Private Families continued to be a great success, and this revolutionary cookbook is what Acton is best known for today.The literary importance of Modern Cookery for Private Families comes not from beautiful language or well-used poetic devices but from the way it both captures truths of the Victorian Era and made a lasting impact on its genre. During the Victorian Era, there were few cookbooks, and these were aimed at individuals who chose to pursue cooking professionally. None of the few available were for normal, middle-class families, people who did not have the means to hire a cook. Eliza Acton’s Modern Cookery for Private Families filled this gap, and because literacy increased drastically during the 19th century, it had a large audience. Its straightforward, practical text aimed to make cooking as clear and easy as possible. Furthermore, Modern Cookery for Private Families included several new features that had never been put into previous cookbooks. Two of these features, estimates of how long it would take to make each dish and separate ingredient lists for each recipe, are now found in most cookbooks published today because Acton’s book was such a success.
Something else of note is the way the preface to Modern Cookery for Private Families demonstrates the classes and gender roles of the Victorian Era. In the fourth paragraph of the preface, Acton first brings up the subject of servants, saying, “more than any other class of people in the world, [servants] would appear to be ignorant of the true value of money, and of the means of economizing it.” Even though Acton goes on to admit that this is a generalization, the fact that she does generalize servants as being less intelligent than other people simply because of their occupation speaks to the sometimes severe classism prominent in the Victorian Era. Several sentences later, Acton discusses how a cookbook like Modern Cookery for Private Families, through teaching women how to cook, is helping them be better housekeepers and wives. Her focus here is solely on the married women; Acton seems to be saying that every wife needs to be a good cook in order to be a good wife, which follows the Victorian belief that women should make the home a pleasant place for their husbands, the providers, to return to at the end of the day.
Many editions of Modern Cookery for Private Families have been published (in 1908, the fortieth edition was published [Tonbridge Historical Society]), some with slight revisions and some with major additions. The preface to the first edition (published in 1845) is included below, because although there are merits to the other editions, the first edition was the one that truly revolutionized the cookbook genre. Furthermore, in the first-edition preface, Acton laid out her initial reasoning for writing the book. She made a strong case for why this cookbook was necessary: it was for the ordinary, inexperienced person and it included features that no other cookbook at the time had.
Preface to Modern Cookery for Private Families
The proper and wholesome preparation of our daily food, though it may hold in the estimation of the world but a very humble place among the useful arts of life, can scarcely be considered an altogether unimportant one, involving so entirely, as it does, both health and comfort.1England is, beyond most other countries, rich in the varied and abundant produce of its soil, or of its commerce which in turn supply to it all that the necessities or the luxury of its people can demand; yet, until within very recent years, its cookery has remained far inferior to that of nations much less advanced in civilization; and foreigners have been called in to furnish to the tables of our aristocracy, and of the wealthier orders of the community, those refinements of the art which were not to be obtained from native talent.
Our improvement was for a long time opposed by our own strong and stubborn prejudices against innovation in general, and against the innovations of strangers in particular; but these, of late, have fast given way before the more rational and liberal spirit of the times2: happily for ourselves, we have ceased to be too bigoted, or too proud to profit by the superior information and experience of others upon any subject of utility. The present age is one of rapid and universally progressing knowledge, and nothing which is really calculated to advance either the great or the small interests of society is now regarded as too homely or too insignificant for notice. The details of domestic economy, in particular, are no longer sneered at as beneath the regard of the educated and accomplished; and the truly refined, intelligent, and high-minded women of England have ceased, in these days of comparative good sense, to consider their attention to such details as inconsistent with their dignity, or injurious to their attractions: — and who can direct their households with the same taste, the same judgment, and the same watchful care for the comfort of others as themselves? Who, indeed, can guard all the interests of home as they can? And surely a woman does not preside less pleasingly in her own immediate circle, nor do the honours of her table, or of her drawing-room, with less grace and propriety for having given (often from pursuits much more congenial to her) some portion of the day to the examination and control of her domestic affairs; it is rare, too, we should suppose, for a husband to be otherwise than grateful to his wife for the exertion of a surveillance which, if steadily and judiciously maintained, will affect his expenditure beyond all that a careless calculator would imagine possible. This, at a period when the struggle for income is so general, and the means of half the families holding a certain rank in the world are so insufficient for the support of their position, is a consideration of very deep importance.
Few things are more certain to involve persons of narrow fortune in painful difficulties than the ruinous, because constant (though not always perceptible), extravagance which so often exists in every department of a house of which the sole regulation is left to servants, who, more than any other class of people in the world, would appear to be ignorant of the true value of money, and of the means of economizing it. We speak, of course, of the generality. Some amongst them there are, we know, equally trustworthy and conscientious, who protect their employers’ property from abuse more scrupulously even than if it wore their own; but the greater number are reckless enough in their wasteful profusion when uncontrolled by the eye of a superior: an inexperienced housekeeper cannot be too soon aware of this. It sometimes happens, however, that the young mistress of a family has had no opportunity before her marriage of acquiring the knowledge which would enable her to conduct her household concerns as she could desire; and that, with a high sense of her duties, and an earnest wish to fulfil them to the utmost, she is prevented by her entire ignorance of domestic affairs from accomplishing her object. In such a case, unless she should chance to possess that rare treasure of common English life, a superior cook,* the economy of her table will not be amongst the lightest of her difficulties; and she may be placed, perhaps, by circumstances, at a distance from every friend who could counsel or assist her. Thrown thus entirely upon her own resources, she will naturally and gladly avail herself of the aid to be derived from such books as can really afford to her the information she requires. Many admirably calculated to do this, in part, are already in possession of the public; but amongst the large number of works on cookery, which we have carefully perused, we have never yet met with one which appeared to us either quite intended for, or entirely suited to the need of the totally inexperienced; none, in fact, which contained the first rudiments of the art, with directions so practical, clear, and simple, as to be at once understood, and easily followed, by those who had no previous knowledge of the subject. This deficiency, we have endeavoured in the present volume to supply, by such thoroughly explicit and minute instructions as may, we trust, be readily comprehended and carried out by any class of learners; our receipts,3 moreover, with a few trifling exceptions which are scrupulously specified, are confined to such as may be perfectly depended on, from having been proved beneath our own roof and under our own personal inspection. We have trusted nothing to others; but having desired sincerely to render the work one of genuine usefulness, we have spared neither cost nor labour to make it so, as the very plan on which it has been written must of itself, we think, evidently prove. It contains some novel features, calculated, we hope, not only to facilitate the labours of the kitchen, but to be of service likewise to those by whom they are directed. The principal of these is the summary appended to the receipts, of the different ingredients which they contain, with the exact proportion of each, and the precise time required to dress the whole.4 This shows at a glance what articles have to be prepared beforehand, and the hour at which they must be ready; while it affords great facility as well, for an estimate of the expense attending them. The additional space occupied by this closeness of detail, has necessarily prevented the admission of so great a variety of receipts as the book might otherwise have comprised; but a limited number, thus completely explained, may perhaps be more acceptable to the reader than a larger mass of materials vaguely given.
Our directions for boning poultry, game, &c., are also, we may venture to say, entirely new, no author that is known to us having hitherto afforded the slightest information on the subject; but while we have done our utmost to simplify and to render intelligible this, and several other processes not generally well understood by ordinary cooks, our first and best attention has been bestowed on those articles of food of which the consumption is the most general, and which are therefore of the greatest consequence; and on what are usually termed, plain English dishes. With these we have intermingled many foreign ones which we know to be excellent of their kind,5 and which now so far belong to our national cookery, as to be met with commonly at all refined modem tables. But we find that we have, in every way, so far exceeded the limits assigned to us for our volume, that we feel compelled to take here, our somewhat abrupt leave of the reader; who will, no doubt, discover easily, without our assistance, both any merit and any deficiency which may exist in the work.
Author's Note
* It can scarcely be expected that good cooks should abound amongst us, if we consider how very few receive any training to fit them for their business. Every craft has its apprentices; but servants are generally left to scramble together as they can, from any source which accident may open to them, a knowledge of their respective duties. We have often thought, that schools in which these duties should he taught them thoroughly, would be of far greater benefit to them than is the half-knowledge of comparatively un-useful matters so frequently bestowed on them by charitable educationists.Annotations
- Modern Cookery for Private Families was the first English cookbook for the middle class. Notice how Acton immediately mentioned the importance of cooking, making a case for why her audience needed their own cookbooks.
- The Victorian Era was one of great innovation across multiple industries, including communications, manufacturing, and travel. Perhaps unsurprisingly, cooking processes and techniques were also undergoing some significant changes.
- Referring to recipes
- Though it may come as a surprise to today’s readers, before Modern Cookery for Private Families, cookbooks did not contain ingredient lists or the estimated time each dish would take.
- Acton eventually decided to include more non-English recipes in Modern Cookery for Private Families (Cook’s Info). These recipes were added to the 1855 edition and included in subsequent editions.