A New and Easy Method of Cookery (1755)

Elizabeth Cleland was a cook and teacher of cookery in Georgian Edinburgh. Her New and Easy Method of Cookery was published in 1755 and is the second printed recipe book published in Scotland the same year of its publication, Lady Margaret Home of Wedderburn suffered a paralytic stroke and was looking for a companion to look after her, the household, and her three grown-up sons, still living at home. Her choice fell on Christina Home, her niece, who seems to have been trained for this task by attending Elizabeth Cleland's School for Young Ladies in Edinburgh and it was her copy of A New and Easy Method of Cookery that was kept in the library of Wedderburn Castle after her death in 1772. Christina Home's cousin, of course, was the builder of Paxton House. How suitable, therefore, that this facsimile should be printed to celebrate the restoration of the kitchen at Paxton House which must have resounded to the very instructions that we read printed on the pages here. Peter Brear's introduction makes plain some of the essential characteristics of Scottish cookery at this time: in other words, that it was predominantly English. But Cleland's work, although not including endless specifically 'Scottish' dishes, does have very much a Scottish feel to it - in the language, in the implements used, and in the weights and measures. All in all, this is essential reading for anyone interested in the domestic history of 18th-century Scotland.