The Indian Cookery Book : A Practical Handbook to the Kitchen of India, Adapted to Three Presidencies; containing Original and Approved Recipes in Every Department of Indian Cookery; Recipes for Summer Beverages and Home-made Liqueurs; Medicinal and Other Recipes; Together With a Variety of Things Worth Knowing

1891 reprint, originally published in 1880. 122 interleaved pages, with 50pp publisher’s catalogue bound in at rear. In brown cloth-covered boards, with black decorations and lettering on front, back and spine (boards are a little worn all over, gently rubbed and rounded at corners, a few mild marks and some mottling along a gently sunned spine). Front hinge cracked with subsequent signature partially detached, and some mild browning of endpapers, else internally neat and clean. Inscription on front paste down, dated 1896, indicating that the volume was once in the possession of Corporal John Guoite of B Company, 1st Battalion, Hampshire Regiment, while stationed in Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh. The name ‘Mrs Flora Annie Steele[sic]? has been written in pencil on the title page, under ‘A Thirty-five Years’ Resident. This seems an unlikely attribution of authorship – Flora Annie Steel spent only 22 years in India, returning to England in 1889; and while she did compose, among many other things, an Indian Cookery book – The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook – aimed at Europeans managing a kitchen in India, there seems no further evidence to link her to this title. A cookery and household management handbook aimed at European wives running homes in India in the late 19th century, with a strong emphasis on descriptions of foodstuffs, utensils, cooking methods etc using language that locally-recruited servants are likely to be familiar with, and descriptions of local foodstuffs, markets, etc in terms which a young and experienced European lady of the house will understand. Includes hundreds of recipes. Uncommon.