As the oldest girl in a family of twenty-one children, Isabella Mayson (1836–1865) had ample practice in the domestic arts by the time she married Samuel Beeton at the age of 20.  Samuel was an innovative editor and publisher, and Isabella participated fully in his publishing business, putting her domestic skills to work as editor of the English Woman's Domestic Magazine. The year after her marriage, Isabella also began work on the monumental compendium of domestic science that is The Book of Household Management.  The book was first published it in 1861, when Isabella was only 25, and it was an immediate success due to her attention to accuracy, economy, and taste.

Isabella died of childbed fever only a few years later, at the age of 28.  After her death, Samuel sold the rights to her book to the publisher Ward, Lock, and Tyler, whose intense marketing created the Victorian domestic icon that Mrs. Beeton later became.

Baked Beef (Cold Meat Cookery)

Ingredients.—About 2 lbs. of cold roast beef, 2 small onions, 1 large carrot or two small ones, 1 turnip, a small bunch of savoury herbs, salt and pepper to taste, 4 tablespoonfuls of gravy, 3 tablespoonfuls of ale, crust or mashed potatoes.
Mode.— Cut the beef in slices, allowing a small amount of fat to each slice; place a layer of this in the bottom of a pie-dish, with a portion of the onions, carrots, and turnips, which must be sliced; mince the herbs, strew them over the meat, and season with pepper and salt. Then put another layer of meat, vegetables, and seasoning; and proceed in this manner until all the ingredients are used. Pour in the gravy and ale (water may be substituted for the former, but it is not so nice), cover with a crust or mashed potatoes, and bake for ½ hour, or rather longer.
Time.—Rather more than ½ hour.
Average cost, exclusive of the meat, 6d.
Sufficient for 5 or 6 persons.
Seasonable at any time.
Note.—It is as well to parboil the carrots and turnips before adding them to the meat, and to use some of the liquor in which they were boiled as a substitute for gravy ; that is to say, when there is no gravy at hand. Be particular to cut the onions in very thin slices.

See the full text at the Hathi Trust or Find the 1899 edition in Special Collections

Don't miss Food Sense, the 2012 Life Sciences and Society Symposium, March 16-18.  SCARaB will be participating with an exhibition of books on science and nutrition.

In March,Special Collections, Archives and Rare Books will be participating in Food Sense, the 2012 Life Sciences and Society Symposium, with an exhibition of books on science and nutrition.  We also maintain a collection of rare and historic cookbooks dating from the seventeenth through the twentieth century.  To highlight these rich holdings, we’ll be sharing a recipe each week through March 16, the symposium weekend.

This week’s feature is Hannah Glasse.  Born in 1708, Glasse eloped at age 16.  By the time she was 40, she found herself living in not-so-genteel poverty as a widow with ten children.  Glasse turned to writing cookbooks to support her family, publishing The Art of Cookery in 1747.  Although The Art of Cookery was very successful, Glasse still ended up in debtor’s prison.  To add insult to injury, the public didn’t think that such a successful cookbook could have been written by a woman.  The cookbook was thought to have been written by Dr. John Hill, using Hannah Glasse as a penname, until the 1930s.

Hannah Glasse’s Recipe for Pound Cake

Take a pound of butter, beat it in an earthen pan with your hand one way, till it is like a fine thick cream, then have ready twelve eggs, but half the whites; beat them well, and beat them up with the butter, a pound of flour beat in it, a pound of sugar, and a few carraways. Beat it all well together for an hour with your hand, or a great wooden spoon, butter a pan and put it in, and then bake it an hour in a quick oven. For change, you may put in a pound of currants, clean washed and picked.

See the full text at the Hathi Trust or Find a 1774 edition in Special Collections