Choice Cookery

Catherine OwenProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 305K words
Chapters: 31

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Choice Cookery by Catherine OwenAuthor: Owen, Catherine, -1889,Language: English, Class: TX: Technology: Home economics, Release Date: Aug 14, 2008

Editor's review

Choice Cookery is a domestic cookery work by Catherine Owen, who died in 1889, and belongs to the nineteenth-century tradition of practical cookery writing. Its value lies not in the number of recipes it collects but in how it presents the era's understanding of "choice cookery": the selection of ingredients, kitchen management, and refined ways of preparing home dishes, with the daily texture of Victorian domestic life showing between the lines. For modern readers it is both a usable cookery reference and a source for the history of food culture, revealing where today's kitchen habits come from. It suits cookery enthusiasts interested in vintage recipes, to read while cooking, and also researchers in food history and domestic-history as a primary text. Note that the measures, stoves, and ingredients differ considerably from those of today, so following it directly may not succeed; it is better read with a historical eye, to understand and adapt.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Cookery enthusiasts interested in nineteenth-century vintage recipes and home cooking
Readers studying food history, domestic history, and the history of daily life
Readers who enjoy browsing old English practical texts and making cultural comparisons
Kitchen practitioners hoping to find inspiration in old recipes and modernize them

Not a good fit for

Beginners who need modern precise measures and clear step-by-step instructions
Readers expecting a richly illustrated recipe book written for contemporary kitchen equipment
People who just want to find a few dishes to cook quickly and are unwilling to deal with old-style wording and ingredient differences

Reading tips

Read the table of contents and preface first to understand the author's cookery ideas, then choose chapters for close reading.
Take notes when encountering old-style measures and stove descriptions, convert them to modern units, and then try them out.
Read the book as food-history material, comparing it with contemporary cookbooks as you go to see how ideas and techniques have changed.
Pick one or two simply structured dishes to modernize, and record the adjusted quantities and heat levels.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Can the recipes in this book be followed directly?

It is not advisable to follow them directly. The measures, stoves, and ingredients belong to a nineteenth-century context and differ considerably from the modern kitchen. Understand the original intent first, then convert quantities and adjust heat and equipment before trying it, treating the book as inspiration and historical material rather than a modern manual.

Is this book suitable for cookery beginners?

It is not very suitable for complete beginners. This is an old English practical text whose wording and layout differ from modern recipes, lacking step-by-step illustrations and precise measures. Readers with some cooking experience who can patiently handle old-style wording will benefit more.

Does it contain only recipes, or other content as well?

Besides methods for dishes, nineteenth-century cookbooks of this kind usually also cover ingredient selection, kitchen management, and ideas about home eating. Titled "Choice Cookery," the book focuses on refined methods and choices; readers can glean the food attitudes of the time, not just lists of ingredients.

What level of English is needed to read this book?

This is an English public-domain book written in nineteenth-century practical prose, whose sentence patterns and terminology are distant from contemporary English. General English reading ability is enough to attempt it, but a dictionary is recommended, and readers should start with the table of contents and preface to build an overall framework.

Comments

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About the author

Catherine Owen Author · American

Catherine Owen (died 1889) was a well-known 19th-century American writer on domestic economy and cookery who was long active in the United States. She was an early contributor to Good Housekeeping and published under the name Catherine Owen. Three of her works are held here: Culture and Cooking, Choice Cookery, and Ten Dollars Enough: Keeping House Well on Ten Dollars a Week. These works deal with kitchen technique, everyday food, and household economy; they argue that cooking is an art worth studying and advocate women's economic self-reliance through skilled household management. Public information on her family background, early life, and education is limited, and her influence lies chiefly in domestic writing and in spreading ideas about women's lives at the time.