Ask me anything! The Mrs Beeton bible!

loumac

Well I have just used this fabulous book to make my first ever soup! French vegetable and wow it was so easy. I spent about £6 on ingredients and it should last me all week.
I have never ever cooked anything from scratch and I am suddenly inspired!

beer2006

I have the Northampton Cookery book, with an inscription inside saying 1928.
Apparently it has " Favourite recipes tested by well-known ladies"

Invalid cookery is there and you are told you need a housemaid and a parlourmaid apparently.

Its got every recipe you could want, anybody want an old style one, for something obscure, let me know.

cathybird

beer2006 wrote:

I have the Northampton Cookery book, with an inscription inside saying 1928.
Apparently it has " Favourite recipes tested by well-known ladies"

Invalid cookery is there and you are told you need a housemaid and a parlourmaid apparently.

well I could certainly do with a housemaid and a parlourmaid! :rotfl: :rotfl:

magni

Another Mrs Beeton fan here:D I have her book called Mrs Beeton's Cookery and Household Management and it's the book I use most often.

I was quite shocked to read about her life on the inside back cover. Times really were very different then. She was the eldest of 4, when she was 4 her father died and her mother remarried a man who also had 4 children and they went on to have another 13 children together:eek: Mrs Beeton herself had 4 children and died aged 28 of puerperal fever during the birth of her 4th child.

She is such an inspiration to me and she managed to achieve so much in her short life. I have had this book for years and only read this part last week:o I look at the book in a whole new light now.

I am going to attempt to make some of her sweets this week:D

jcr16

i have this book. it is excellent. i bought a bulk load of 46 books for a fiver and this was inculded. i was so excited i told my mum about it and she said ' oh i have that book i use it loads , it was your nanny's '. my mum and i often turn to it when we need help. it was excellent back in the summer when we needed help with a huge quanity of fallers we had been given.

nearlyrich

I got the Household management book in the early 80's too and I still use it sometimes it's a great read anyway. Not to mention doing double duty as a door stop or step to reach the higher shelves in my kitchen, it's about 6 inches wide!

I prefer the Yorkshire Pudding recipe in Delia Smith's cookery course which is half milk half water and always comes out perfectly for me.

Charis

Ebany wrote:

Another passage that I think is just wonderful, who wants a house like this:

Originally Posted by Mrs Beeton
The Labour Saving House

Coke or gas will provide a constant hot water supply, electricity or gas will cook, electricity will wash up, clean metal ware, peel potatoes; in fact, do all the drudgery.

Lifts and trolleys will relieve servants of most of the carrying. Every bedroom, besides having hot and cold water laid on, will have its gas-fire or electric radiator, cooker, boiler and toaster, telephone, electric clock, wireless and television set.
Electric vacuum cleaners, sweepers and scrubbers will make the housemaids work a sinecure. Besides all this, there will be no basement kitchens and few houses of more than two storeys.

I assume the publishers are using a little poetic licence here. Isabella Beeton died in 1865, aged 28, before the first electric light had been invented and before there was such a thing as household electricity. Televisions were not invented until the 1930's and not in general use in the UK before the early 1950s.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/beeton_mrs.shtml

1878: Joseph Swan demonstrated the first Electric Light
Joseph Swan, a British scientist, demonstrated the first electric light with a carbon filament lamp. A few months later, Thomas Edison made the same discovery in America.

1881: The first public electricity supply
The first public electricity supply was generated in Godalming, Surrey using a waterwheel at a nearby mill.

http://www.schoolscience.co.uk/content/3/physics/electric/index.html

Ebany

Yup, at the start it has a section explaining how they have updated it 'to bring the book fully up to date and to meet present-day conditions, but without destroying any of the unique features on which the books permanent value rests.'

It refers to the world wars, and other such things Mrs Beeton would have known nothing of, but with the huge changes there must have been with the introduction of electricity it makes sense that they revised it.

Smiley_Mum

When I looked around for Mrs Beeton books, there was sooooo many of them, all different ones, everyday cookery, tips, cakes, etc etc etc.

Which one is the up to date version of the one the OP has mentioned? I'd be interested in acquiring a copy.

winnie81

Hi I was wondering if anyone can confirm for me that this http://www.mrsbeeton.com/index.html is an online version of Mrs Beetons book?

I have heard so many good things about it and it would be great if it is the 'one' so OH can buy me something different for christmas instead :j

Thank oyu

Claire x