A Flick Through Our Victorian Cookbook | Warne’s Model Cookery & Housekeeping Book (1868)

★ About: ‘On the Lady of the house devolves the task of providing food for her household ; it should be her care that no waste or ignorant misuse shall squander the property of her husband - most frequently the bread-winner for the family - and that noting is lost by carelessness or bad cookery. She is to take care that there is no lack through fault of hers, nor any drawback to domestic comfort through injudicious rule ; no neglect caused by the love of idle pleasure.’ - is the opening paragraph of Warne’s Model Cookery & Housekeeping Book published in 1868, slap-bang in the middle of the Victorian era.
In the year it was published the world’s first traffic lights were invented, the Granny Smith apple cultivar was originated and helium was first detected during a Total Eclipse in Guntar, India. Electricity was a fairly new invention and was certainly not a part of everyday life. Cooking was either by gas or fire and the domestic refrigerator wouldn’t be invented for another 45 years. More than 150 years later, things are now very different.
This cookbook cost One Shilling to buy which would have been affordable for most cooks working in and around London at the time, or a housekeeper with a steady family income. It provides pages of detailed advice on how to go to market, buy and cook seasonably, keep household accounts and carve/truss different cuts of meat before getting to the recipes which are divided into the following chapters/sections:
• Breakfast dishes
• Fish
• Soups
• Sauces and gravies
• Forcemeats and stuffings
• Store sauces
• Beef
• Mutton
• Lamb
• Veal
• Pork
• Venison
• Poultry
• Made dishes
• Meat Pies and Puddings, Vol-au-vants etc
• Vegetables and salads,
• Curing and potting
• Pastries
• Baked and boiled pudding
• Pancakes and fritters
• Flummery, blancmange and syllabubs
• Souffles and omelets
• Creams
• Jellies and sweet dishes
• Second course dishes and relishes
• Baking biscuits and cakes
• Preserves and pickles
• Wines and syrups
• Cookery for the sick
Coming up…
Plum Jam / ‘How to preserve plums’ | Victorian Recipe
Jam Roly Poly Pudding | Victorian Recipe
Custard for Puddings | Victorian Recipe
★ More on our little ‘library’: www.handeddown...
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♪ Music: Frozen in Love by Aakash Gandhi

[@lorettanortem9496]

You're so lucky having so many old cookbooks! ❤️Even though it may be a fragile book, it definitely seems to have lots of great recipes! 😱

[@handeddownkitchen8192]

We really are very lucky to have found this one, as small and fragile as it is, it has taught us so much! One day we’re going to find out how to properly restore it to at least strengthen the spine, but not until we’ve done enough reading and practiced. Wouldn’t want to bodge the job, it’s far too precious! ♥️ 💕 Miss. HD

[@HomeCookingJourney]

This looks like a good cookbook to have in the house, seeing all the chapters in the description! Beautifully explained! I can't wait to see your next video~🙂

[@handeddownkitchen8192]

Thank you, my dear 🥰! When I’m writing out what I want to say in these book videos, I can overdo it a bit so I have to cut a lot out (otherwise everyone would fall asleep!) so I do hope that the balance of background to book narrative is ok. It really is a very handy little book to have! Both this one and our 1930s cookbook are absolute goldmines of information - while a lot of it is very outdated, they really set you up for running a house, from how to shop to how to cook and then... well, in the case of this book, how to make toothpaste and de-rust steel! As soon as we get a chance we’re going to see how many of those napkin folds we can accomplish 🧐 (although I’m completely hopeless at origami so we’ll have to see, lol)! 💕 Miss. HD

[@Rmby5759]

Omg, this is my favorite channel, thank you. Great video.

[@nostalgiapie7397]

As fragile as it is, it's still a very beautiful book and you're so lucky to have something this special and rare as part of your collection. Looking forward to the next video. No pressure ;) xx

[@handeddownkitchen8192]

Very lucky indeed 🥰! We do love our books. The amount of stuff we’ve learnt from them is amazing. I’m actually going to have a go at one of the handy tips at the back of this one soon for how to ‘Remove Paint Stains from Glass Windows’ so we’ll see how this goes 😉. 💕 Miss. HD

[@tracieeaton1082]

The curry recipe sounds as it would have been done in the time. Curry would have been a relatively new spice and the use of it, how to cook with it and get the best out of the spice, unknown to the average cook. Trial and error was the name of the game. Why don't you try cooking the Curry and tell us your thoughts on the outcome? Thank you for sharing and have a fantastic week.

[@handeddownkitchen8192]

Absolutely - that sounds like a brilliant idea to me! It would be very interesting to see what these Victorians’ first attempt at this cuisine would’ve been like. We’ll start with the recipe for Madras Curry Powder so that we have it to hand and then choose one of the recipes in this section that uses it. If all goes well, we’ll have to do a video for it but either way, I’m going to let you know how it goes 😉. Hope you had a lovely week, Tracie - you take care! 💕 Miss. HD

[@love2000amglam]

Half a pound of sugar a week!? Jeeeeeeeezzzzzz