The English Housewife

Gordon DesBrisay is an assistant professor of history at the University
of Saskatchewan.

Anyone interested in the history of cookery and in women’s work and
domestic life in early modern England will welcome this paperback
version of Michael R. Best’s fine edition of Gervase Markham’s The
English Housewife. First published in 1615, the book was written for
(and probably in consultation with) well-to-do women who headed large
country households. It contains an astounding array of information and
advice across a wide range of topics, from medicine and cookery (which
together account for half the book), to gardening, brewing, winemaking,
clothmaking, and dairying (the latter offering the first substantive
account in print). The cookery section offers nearly 200 recipes,
inspiring and disgusting by turn: toasted mutton (“lean meat is loss
of labour”), Banbury cake (“take four pounds of currants”),
gelatine (“take the blood of a swan”), and roast butter (“dredge
it with the dredging before appointed for the pig”).

This beautifully designed and superbly edited book opens with the
editor’s solid introduction, which is followed by the complete text
interspersed with contemporary illustrations. Spelling and punctuation
have been modernized, but the clarity of Markham’s prose shines
through. A glossary, extensive notes, and a detailed index are tucked at
the back so as not to interrupt casual dips into this remarkable
compendium.

The general reader will find much to enjoy here, as will teachers and
students of women’s history. The latter will want to know more about
childbearing and childrearing (about which Markham is silent) and about
domestic servants (the women who will have done much of the actual work
Markham describes in any household where his book was likely to be
found). Students may also be less sanguine than the editor about drawing
a firm distinction between Markham’s conventional theories of wifely
subservience and his practical advice about household affairs. This is
only to say that, like any good book, this one raises questions as well
as answers them.