The Houswife’s Book of Simple Cookery

First edition, first impression.  90pp.  Red cloth-covered board, with handwritten titles on spine.  12mo.  Boards are heavily worn, with some minor marks and stains, and four tiny – pin prick – holes on upper panel. Text block edges  little toned and softened.  Shaken with effective tape repairs to front and rear hinges.  Last true leaf has a closed tear.  Spotting, mild toning and signs of handling and use throughout, page corners rounded and occasionally dog-eared.  Solid, complete but a reading/reference copy only. 

A hard to find vintage volume which serves as much as piece of culinary social history as it does a recipe book and cookery guide.  Writing in the early pat of the 20th century, E L Crittall  belonged to a generation of female domestic science writers who sought to streamline home management, focussing heavily on economical cookery.  The title. ‘Simple Cookery’ reflects a specific historical trend which was aimed at the expanding middle class, with books written exclusively for household cooks without any formal training or a massive kitchen staff.   E L Crittall says in her introduction that she is writing for  “the novice or amateur who has toyed with cakes and sweetmeats in the home kitchen and who now has come into a kingdom of her own…with one thought in her mind. To please Him, any young wife worthy the name wil put all her intelligence and energy into this great problem.  Not only must the toothsomeness of the dishes guide her in their preparation…but the economy in expenditure and the trick of extracting every particle of good…and happy the man who possesses a wife clear enough to solve it.”