Image: Eliza Smith · Public domain
The Compleat Cook's Guide
- Year
- 1677
- Era
- 17th century
- Origin
- England · Europe
- Language
- English
- Category
- English pre-1800
The Compleat Cook's Guide, first issued in 1677, is an anonymous English receipt book of the late Stuart period, gathering instructions for cookery, preserving, and household confectionery in the practical idiom then favoured by gentry and citizen households. Belonging to the flourishing tradition of post-Restoration printed cookery, it preserves the vocabulary, techniques, and tastes of the period, including roast meats, made dishes, pies, and sweetmeats characteristic of the English kitchen before 1700.
Cooking from this book
Sack Posset
Signature dishFew drinks evoke late Stuart hospitality more vividly than the sack posset, a warm curdled concoction of cream, sugar, spices, and fortified Spanish wine, served in elaborate two handled posset pots. Compendia such as this anonymous 1677 guide helped fix the posset in the English domestic imagination, where it served as both a festive nightcap and a restorative for invalids. Its richness and ceremony made it emblematic of the period's blending of medicinal lore with genteel table pleasure.
An editorial note on a dish associated with this book, written for The Coquinist. It is not a reproduction of the book's recipe.