The Accomplisht Cook

The Accomplisht Cook, published in 1660, was the largest and most complete cookery book England had yet seen, and the first to arrange its recipes in an orderly way. Robert May had cooked for great houses for more than fifty years, and here he set down the whole art of the professional kitchen at the close of the Tudor and Stuart age. The book holds hundreds of recipes for meat, fish, and pastry, along with the elaborate banquet dishes and showpieces meant to amaze guests at the table. It is a window into how the wealthy really ate before the modern kitchen took shape. This free PDF and EPUB offers the full historic text for cooks and food historians alike.