A cook berating a lazy servant.
- Title: A hard case [graphic].
- Publication: [London?] : [publisher not identified], [approximately 1820?]
820.00.00.93+
Acquired September 2023
A hard case
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Tag Archives: Cooks
A catalogue of the kitchin furniture of John Bull Esqr.
“Satire on Bute’s alleged sale of public positions paralleled with Earl Talbot’s introduction of economies into the royal household. An auction is taking place in a large kitchen where, in the centre, Talbot, Lord Steward of the Household, instructs the auctioneer’s clerk at a table beneath the podium. On the left, three cooks, one a Frenchman planning to leave for Calais to work for “Monsr. Grandsire”, are mocked by a Scot for not being able to make haggis; another cook brandishing a gridiron and two ladles stands in front of the fireplace in which stands only a cracked pot filled with thistles. On the right, a poor man plans to bid for “old rags or broken glass”, and a stout middle-class woman plans to purchase a ladle to beat her husband, while Princess Augusta and Lord Bute converse intimately; the Princess points suggestively to a large pot resting with other utensils on the floor. In the background, a chaplain laments the lack both “of victuals and of grace”.”–British Museum online catalogue.
- Title: A catalogue of the kitchin furniture of John Bull Esqr. leaving of house-keeping now selling by auction [graphic].
- Publication: [London : Publish’d according to act of Parliament by J. Williams, next the Mitre Tavern, Fleet Street, 1762]
Catalog Record & Digital Collection
762.00.00.153
Acquired April 2016
The cook’s book, Hardwicke House
Household accounts book for Hardwicke House on the banks of the river Thames in Oxfordshire includes itemized payments to kitchen staff as well as lists of ingredients and the quantities purchased. The household employed two cooks during this period; the accounts are signed by Mary Stent until Christmas quarter-day of 1748 when she received her last payment and then by her replacement by Ann Colet. Under Colet’s management the list of ingredients becomes more detailed. The accounts also list payments for kitchen equipment (ladles, dishes, “wooden ware”, needles, etc.) as well as other items needed by the staff including chamber pots and postage for letters. The accounts were reviewed by Philip Powys Esqr., who settled the accounts with the cooks.
- Author: Stent, Mary.
- Title: The cook’s book, Hardwicke House, [1748-1753]
LWL Mss Vol. 213
Acquired November 2013