Image: Eliza Smith · Public domain
The Compleat Housewife
- Year
- 1727
- Era
- 18th century
- Origin
- England · Europe
- Language
- English
- Category
- English pre-1800
The Compleat Housewife; or, Accomplish'd Gentlewoman's Companion, first issued in London in 1727, is a comprehensive domestic manual gathering receipts for cookery, pastry, preserving, distilling, and household physic. Widely reprinted throughout the eighteenth century, it achieved a singular distinction when William Parks reprinted it at Williamsburg in 1742, making it the earliest cookery book printed in the American colonies and a foundational text of Anglo-American domestic literature.
Cooking from this book
Calf's Head Pie
Signature dishA celebrated centerpiece of Eliza Smith's collection, calf's head pie embodies the ambition of an early Georgian gentlewoman's table. Rich, gelatinous, and lavishly seasoned with sack, anchovies, and warm spices, it represented the kind of grand made dish that distinguished an accomplished housewife. Its presence in the 1742 Williamsburg edition, the first cookery book printed in America, carried this emphatically English tradition across the Atlantic, shaping colonial notions of refined cookery for decades.
An editorial note on a dish associated with this book, written for The Coquinist. It is not a reproduction of the book's recipe.
