Image: Ellis, William · Public domain
The Country Housewife's Family Companion
- Year
- 1750
- Era
- 18th century
- Origin
- England · Europe
- Language
- English
- Category
- Specialist
The Country Housewife's Family Companion, compiled by William Ellis and first published in 1750, is a practical English manual addressed to rural households of middling and modest means. Drawing on observations gathered across the countryside, it gathers receipts and advice on brewing, dairying, baking, preserving, and the management of poultry and provisions. Its value lies in documenting the working domestic economy of the eighteenth-century English farmhouse rather than genteel kitchen fashion.
Cooking from this book
Hertfordshire cheese
Signature dishWilliam Ellis was a Hertfordshire farmer, and his Companion sits firmly in the world of the working dairy. The plain farmhouse cheese of his county becomes a kind of emblem for the book, standing in for everything Ellis cared about: thrifty management of milk, the rhythms of the cow yard, and the cottage wife's skill at turning a daily yield into something that would feed, sell, and keep through the year.
An editorial note on a dish associated with this book, written for The Coquinist. It is not a reproduction of the book's recipe.
