1815 Cookbook The French Cook, Or, The Art of Cookery: Developed in All Its Branches

[Amaranth]

I've been enjoying this 1815 Cookbook The French Cook, Or, The Art of Cookery: Developed in All Its Branches. It's mostly French recipes, with some Italian, English, German, Bavarian, and a few other influences added. The author was cooking for very large households, so his menus are bigger than we'd need, but the individual recipes are generally a good size. So far I have been focusing on the soup chapter and getting some good ideas. Soups start on page 55.

I especially like the idea of making various purees and adding broth and a cooked starch to make a soup. I think this would make it creamy plus add something to chew. The soups look like they would be colorful and pretty.

I've noted that there are even a number of recipes for different flavored chicken wings, but I haven't looked into those yet. smile emoticon

This book is very meat centric, but there are some suitable for vegetarians.

Note that the table of contents is a number of pages into the text--about 17 pages in.

He usually titles the recipes in French and sometimes in franglais, but then gives the ingredients in English. There are a few odd things that I think I have figured out. Or if not please speculate or make corrections. Below is just the odd stuff rather than the French words that translate normally and straightforwardly.

As is usual in these early cookbooks, you may want to use a modern cookbook to get cooking temperatures and initial estimates of cooking times. Also be on the look out for any food safety issues.

If you come across others and add them to the comments, I can edit and add them up here.

*Italian pastes = pastas of various sorts
*liard, en liards = a bread crouton perhaps the size of the liard coin(no idea of size)
*mark (various meats)--I think this means to brown the meat, or to grill it in an iron pot/pan.
*Naples lazagnes--lasagne noodles look like they would make sense in this recipe.
*pease = peas
*semouille--possibly semoule which is semolina, but if so I don't know if they mean the flour or a semolina pasta

https://books.google.com/books?id=xY...page&q&f=false

[razz]

You have admirable patience to work your way through these recipes.

[Zoe Girl]

What fun, I would love to read a cook book in French. I do read a little French, speak a very small amount after all these years.

[Amaranth]

Zoe Girl, the book is in English mostly. The titles of the recipes are generally in French, but the how to make the food is in English.