Mrs.Beeton's Book of Household Management by Mrs. Beeton

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  • robm on February 15, 2013

    Part 2: Beeton is often accused of plagiarizing from Eliza Acton's pioneering Modern Cookery, and she certainly dipped deeply into Acton's work. But Beeton adapted and updated the recipes to reflect the change from cooking over open fires to the use of ranges and even the new gas cookery! Beeton also was the first to list all the ingredients and quantities at the beginning of the recipe, instead of including them in the narrative of the recipe. As a result, you can still cook from this book, although another updated and expanded edition appeared in the 1890s (as I recall). Downtown Abbey fans should be thrilled, because this is the food served at the Abbey, it describes the duties of the staff and the mistress of the house, and shows how tables were to be set and meal service to be performed in the well-managed household!

  • robm on February 15, 2013

    Anyone interested in the history of cooking needs this book. It's the Bible of British cookery, still in use (in modernized versions) today. This facsimile of the first edition brings us the original 1865 version, with endless recipes for all the classic British dishes, but also very, very extensive sections on household management and other useful information for the mistress of a house. If you want to know what the exact duties of a valet or ladies' maid were, you can find them here! As a result, this book is an invaluable window into domestic life in the Victorian Age.

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  • ISBN 10 0907486185
  • ISBN 13 9780907486183
  • Published Jan 01 1983
  • Format Hardcover
  • Page Count 1,152
  • Language English
  • Edition Enlarged Facsimile of 1861 ed
  • Countries United Kingdom
  • Publisher Bounty Books

Publishers Text

An almost forgotten classic though a founding text of Victorian middle-class identity,Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management is a volume of insight and common sense. Written by what one might now describe as a Victorian Martha Stewart, the book offers advice on fashion, child-care, animal husbandry, poisons, and the management of servants. To the modern reader expecting stuffy verbosity or heavy moralizing, Beeton's book is a revelation: it explores the foods of Europe and beyond, suggesting new food stuffs and techniques, mixing domestic advice with discussions of science, religion, class, industrialism and gender roles. Alternately frugal and fashionable, anxious and self confident, the book highlights the concerns of the growing Victorian middle-class at a key moment in its history. This abridged edition serves as a cookery book, while documenting a significant aspect of Victorian social and cultural history.

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