Holiday Cooking with Hannah Glasse

Holiday Cooking with Hannah Glasse

The holiday season has kitchens humming around the world, whether it’s churning out a favorite cookie recipe or prepping a celebratory meal with loved ones. In the 1700s, kitchens in England regularly consulted Hannah Glasse’s
The Art of Cookery
Made Plain and Easy
for tried-and-true recipes. Among Glasse’s readers was a food lover near and dear to our hearts: Smithsonian founder James Smithson. Whether he knew it or not, Smithson had a bit in common with Glasse. Both were the illegitimate children of privileged Northumberland fathers, and each would leave a lasting cultural legacy.
Smithson’s copy of
The Art of Cookery
Made Plain and Easy
can be found in our
Joseph F. Cullman 3
rd
Natural History Library
. This edition, printed in 1770, is one of 124 titles from Smithson’s private book collection which came to the Institution with his personal belongings. Our copy contains several notes in Smithson’s own hand. Of special interest to us is the list of recipes noted on the back pastedown, such as “
Scotch Collops
”, which may have been Smithson’s favorites.
Rear pastedown,
The Art of Cookery
Made Plain and Easy
(1770).
When it was first published in 1747,
The Art of Cookery
Made Plain and Easy
was not originally attributed to Glasse but rather simply to “a Lady”.  What set Glasse’s work apart from other “cookery” books of the time was the intended audience. Glasse hoped to reach cooks of the “lower sort” not well-trained chefs in grand houses.  She purposely avoids instruction in the “high polite style” and eschews contemporary French terms in favor of more recognizable phrases, like “little pieces of bacon” instead of “lardoons”, with an emphasis on practicality and frugality.
Title page,
The Art of Cookery
Made Plain and Easy
(1770).
Though many of the recipes were first printed in other sources, Glasse’s work is notable for compiling so many recipe options and methods, and in some cases simplifying instruction. According to Anne Willen’s account in
Great cooks and their recipes,
Glasse’s book became one of the most successful publications of the 18
th
century – reproduced in over 20 editions by 1800. But despite the book’s popularity, Glasse filed for bankruptcy in 1754. She did write at least two additional books, but little is known about the end of her life. She died in 1770.
Thanks to our
Adopt-a-Book
program and generous
donor John H. Dick
, our copy of
The Art of Cookery
Made Plain and Easy
has received conservation treatment, been fully digitized, and is available online. Senior book conservator Katie Wagner describes the book and her experience working with it in this
YouTube video:
Flipping the digital pages will leave you absolutely in awe of not only the time and effort that went into an average Georgian-era meal but also the odd preparations and food pairings that might confuse a modern palate. Eels, rabbits, and pigeons were popular sources of protein. And from oysters to walnuts, the…