[Sca-cooks] Digby and Eggs

Johnna Holloway johnnae at mac.com
Mon May 7 05:05:26 PDT 2012


On May 5, 2012, at 6:55 AM, Elise Fleming wrote:

> Greetings!  For those who aren't regular readers of SCAtoday.net, here's a new posting about Sir Kenelm Digby and his use of eggs:
> http://phys.org/news/2012-04-egg-cetera-eggs-fifteen-whites.html
> I have a hunch that Digby isn't the only cookery book author that records recipes with oodles of eggs.  (There's that infamous one that starts "Take a thousand eggs or more".)  But, you might find the professor's comments interesting.
> 
> Alys K.

Published in the decade before Digby and buried in the subtitle to "Mounsieur Marnette's" The Perfect Cook of 1656 is a reference to eggs. The full title of that book is:
The perfect cook : being the most exact directions for the making all kind of pastes, with the perfect way of teaching how to raise, season, and make all sorts of pies, pasties, tarts, and florentines, &c., now practised by the most famous and expert cooks, both French and English : as also The perfect English cook, or, right method of the whole art of cookery, with the true ordering of French, Spanish, and Italian kickshaws, with alamode varieties for persons of honour : to which is added, the way of dressing all manner of flesh, fowl, and fish, and making admirable sauces, after the most refined way of French and English ... : with fifty five ways of dressing of eggs.

{This volume is based in part on La Varenne's The French Pastry Cook.}
You can see a scan of the title page and initial engraving here:
http://luna.folger.edu/luna/servlet/detail/FOLGERCM1~6~6~308588~124415:-Patissier-fran%C3%A7ois--English--The-p

Also see http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2007/04/eggs-17th-c-style.html
 and http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2007/12/sixth-day-of-christmas.html where the Old Foodie discusses Marnette's recipes for eggs.

Johnnae





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