Closet For Ladies: Frontispiece and Introduction
These pages have been written to be as close to the font styles of the late 16th and early 17th century original as possible, within the limitations of HTML. As a result, the long-s symbol 'ſ' has been used in the text wherever it features in the original, as well as overbars and other symbols to represent abbreviations and the ligatures that link the c–t characters.
You will encounter many unfamiliar culinary terms and usages in this work. Where the recipe has been redacted into modern form, these are either defined in the redaction or a link to a definition is given. However, may of the terms can also be found by browsing or searching the glossary of cooking and food terms pages on this site.
The text presented here is derived directly from the original manuscript, rendered in a late Elizabethan style font. The font is embedded in this page to ensure, as far as possible, that the text renders correctly for you.
For our American readers, it should be noted that this small volume is one of the antecedent books from which the book known as Martha Washington's Book of Cookery [MWBC] is derived. Indeed, 81 of the recipes presented here make their way either directly, or in minimally adapted form into Martha Washington's Book of Cookery. The likelihood is that the Closet for Ladies was the source book for a volume known as A Booke of Sweetmeats and it is this along with another manuscript known as A Booke of Cookery that came to be published as Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery in 1981 by Columbia University Press. I. It seems that in the 1750s, Martha Washington came to own these manuscripts, their being a gift from her first husband's family. Little has been published about the source of the manuscripts and their antecedents. In the main, this has been due to a lack of good source material. But with more historic cookery books available on the internet in good copies or facsimile editions, we can, to day, be far more definitive about how these manuscripts evolved. Which is why it can now be said with certainty that the Closet for Ladies is a direct antecedend of the MWBC.
History of the Book
Though this cookbook, the A Closet for Ladies and Gentlewomen. Or, The Art of Preseruing, Conseruing, and Candying. to provide its full title, was not published until 1608, which would make it a Stuart rather than an Elizabethan book, it was actually registered with the London Company of Stationers in 1602, but was not published for 6 years, which actually makes this a late Elizabethan volume. As such I am including it with the other Elizabethan texts on this site. The book itself contains a range of recipes both culinary and medicinal. I have omitted the medicinal recipes here, as they are not relevant to this site. Thankfully, the original volume is split into two parts, and it is the first part, dealing with ‘the art of preserving, conserving, and candying that is presented here.
No author of this work is acknowledged, and, indeed, there is no real clue as to whom the author might have been. However, it is likely that the original manuscript was a series of treasured recipes used in running and maintaining a household. After its original print run in 1608, the book was re-printed in various editions (amended and un-amended) in 1611, 1614, 1618, 1624, 1627, 1630, 1632, 1635, 1636, 1641, 1644, 1647, 1651, 1654, and 1656. Modern editions having been published in 1997 and 2010. The volumes The Ladies Cabinet Opened (1639) and The Ladies Cabinet Enlarged and Opened (1654) both contained large sections directly derived from the A Closet for Ladies.
Like the books of Hugh Platt, this volume essentially shows the special domestic arts of candying, preserving and physick that well-off ladies, gentlewomen, and the good housewives of the gentry might be expected to be skilled in during the late-16th until the mid-17th century. The recipes presented here are not the every-day, but rather the special preserves and sweetmeats intended to be served as part of the final course of a banquet meal.
The section on medicine [which is not included here], is separate from the section on preserving and may have represented a separate manuscript that the printer bound with the first part to produce a larger volume. Indeed, even the first part seems to begin very abruptly (as you can see here) and it might originally have been part of a larger manuscript with more domestic recipes included. Of course, we may never know this for certain.
Re-creating a Jacobethan (late Elizabethan, early Stuart) banqueting last course. The A Closet for Ladies is an excellent starting point for re-creating such as course, as it includes all the necessary creams, pastes, candies and sweetmeats (which would include what we think of as Jellies and Jams) — but what are missing are the biscuits, pastries and cakes which would also have been included during the period. Maybe these were the contents of the possibly missing first part of the manuscript, however, if you read this work in conjunction with Hugh Plat's Delights for Ladies (available on this site) then you can re-create everything you need.
Closet for Ladies: Frontispiece and Introduction
for Ladies, and Gentlevvomen
Conſeruing, and Candying
With the manner hovve
to make diuers kinds of ſyrups: and all kind of banqueting ſtuffes.
and ſalues, for ſundry diſeases.]
For Arthur Iohnson,
dvvelling neere the great north dore of Paules, 1608
Alphabetical list of Closet for Ladies recipes follows (limited to 100 recipes per page). There are recipes in total:
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| To Candy Goos-berries. Origin: England | To Make Muskadine Comfits. Origin: England | To prserve Apricockes. Origin: England |
| To make Manus Christi. Origin: England | To preserve Cherries. Origin: England |
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