Recipes from the White Hart Inn

by William Verrall

William Verrall, the redoubtable eighteenth-century landlord of the White Hart Inn in Lewes, Sussex, trained under a continental chef and was determined to introduce the 'modern and best French cookery' to his customers. Gently mocking Englishmen who eat plain mutton chops or only possess one frying-pan, he gives enthusiastic advice on must-have kitchen gadgets and describes enticing dishes such as truffles in French wine and mackerel with fennel. This selection also includes the recipes that the poet Thomas Gray scribbled in his own well-thumbed copy of Verall's Complete System of Cookery , which was one of the best-loved food books of its time.

Genres: Food, Cookbooks, Nonfiction, British Literature, Cooking, Food and Drink

112 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2011

Reviews

[Ebot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable. I had a laugh at all the mediocre (to be kind about it!) reviews in contrast to my enthusiasm.

He wrote with a flippant, fast paced, cheeky tone, as appalled by bad British cookery in 1759 as we remain today. A recipe for Hollandaise sauce; something that sounds like cabbage rolls; no apparent differentiation between sweet and savoury dishes (dessert is served: “potatoes boiled, and thump’d to pieces, with an egg or two, and a little sugar”); a concoction for absolutely every last ounce of a beast no matter what it is-it’s all edible!; and who knew a salamander was cooking tool from the 17th century!?

Yes the recipes are vague and mostly gross sounding. And yes, the same ingredients appear in nearly every recipe (including dessert!) but I would hazard to guess that those few repeatedly used ingredients are rare and highly valuable. Lemons, mace, etc. It’s an interesting thought experiment to envision cooking and eating at that time.

And those’ bonus’ recipes at the end by Thomas Gray!? Not sure I want an unscaled carp stuffed with 20 picked oysters, 5 whole onions and 3 anchovies and then boiled in red wine and dressed with 1/4 lbs of butter mixed with 2-3 eggs yolks. But he loves it! Also how about those tips on dressing leaches and minnows... thanks for the extra recipes!

[Addie]

Sometimes when you need to hit your annual reading goal, you read a historic cookbook that your cousin Carolyn gifted you! I can't rate this, because what do I know about meat-based hospitality recipes from the early 20th century. In practical terms, the egg and dessert recipes were more interesting than the meat recipes, since I don't frequently boil meats for large parties.

[Kaye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mildly interesting.
I've read too many of these older books in a row. Strange names for odd bits of food, vague methods of cooking, all charms that are losing their appeal.

[Ape · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unless you're an adventurous historic foodie I don't know whether you'd actually make anything from this. The recipes are not overly detailed, so there's a lot left to your own interpretation, so I guess if you gave one of the recipes to ten different people, you'd probably end up with ten different dishes. For me personally it was interesting to read from a historical perspective, to see what the wealthy were eating, what was being cooked in England in the 1700s and so on. These were not times for the squeamish cook, for everything was used, and there was no popping down to Sainsburys for your filleted fish. You got your fish/animal/fowl as killed, and had to do a lot of the butchering yourself. Everything was eaten, and there are recipes for calves ears, tails etc in here. I don't eat red meat so these things make me shudder, and honestly, I couldn't eat most of what's in this book. Even when he's making a fish dish, he's lobbing a bit of bacon in with it. These were the times though, so I can hardly slate him for not being up with vegetarianism! The most disturbing recipe is in a section at the end of recipes by a guy called Thomas Gray who wrote some recipes in his copy of William Verrall's book (this penguin edition is only an excerpts book incidentally). And the recipe that made by eyebrows pop up? "To Dress Minnows, Leaches etc". Leaches? Really.... shudders. It reminds me of catching a bit of that mad upper class southern fella's programme, Hugh Fernley Whittingstall, when he was trying out different ways of preparing slugs to see if they could be eaten. He really gave it a fair go, and the conclusion - slugs are revolting.
My favourite part is actually the introduction when he talks about some people he knows who are baffled by the idea of kitchen utensils. What are they? They ask. He explains: pots, pans, whisk etc etc, to which they respond, but I only own one pot. It's so wonderful how they then dash out to get themselves a couple more pans and what have you, and are so delighted by the improvement in the food coming out of the kitchen.

[Nabilah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book got so many meat based recipes.

[Chris]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12256364