Hannah Glasse, ‘The art of cookery made plain and easy’, (1788)

Hannah Glasse’s cookery book was a knock-out success in the eighteenth century. In her introduction, she wrote ‘I believe I have attempted a branch of Cookery, which nobody has yet thought worth their while to write upon’ going on to explain that her recipes were chiefly written as instructions for servants to follow, to save the lady of the house the trouble of detailed instruction.

As well as soups, pies and ‘hogs pudding’, there are also recipes for ‘a certain cure for the bite of a mad dog’ and ‘a receipt to keep clear from bugs’. First published in 1747, at least 40 more editions were published, making Glasse one of the best-known cookery writers of the Georgian period.

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