Glossary

Barm
The froth that forms on fermenting beverages such as wine or beer. It can be used as a leavening agent in baking.

Cook’s Oracle (1817-)
Apicius Redivivus: or, The Cook’s Oracle was William Kitchiner’s most famous cookery book, and first appeared in 1817. The book was a practical guide for domestic cooks, taking the reader through all aspects of food selection, preparation and preservation. It was so popular that it went through about 20 editions, the last appearing in 1855, long after Kitchiner’s death. Many of the nineteenth-century recipes in The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies were transcribed from The Cook’s Oracle.

Dutch oven
An iron cooking pot which could be heated by surrounding the vessel with hot coals, by placing it in front of a hot fire grate.

Isinglass
Derived from the air bladders of freshwater fish, isinglass was a form of gelatin commonly used for setting jellies and creams. It can also be used to clarify liquids, and is still used in viticulture today.

Italian warehouse
The Italian warehouse typically sold not only foodstuffs imported from Italy, but also general groceries, including oil, tea and coffee, cheeses, pulses, dried foods, spices and prepared sauces.

Kitchiner, William (1778–1827)
Kitchiner was a writer whose published works betray an eclectic range of interests, from opera to optometry. He produced a number of cookery books during his lifetime, including the Cook’s Oracle, which was first published in 1817 and went on to appear in many later editions, even after Kitchiner’s death. He spent much of his life in Westminster, and was baptised, married and buried at St Clement Danes.

Neat
A domestic bovine, such as an ox, bullock, cow or heifer.

Pottle
A unit of capacity, equivalent to half a gallon (2.3 litres).

Zoobditty mutch
A prepared sauce, described in an advertisement of 1776 as ‘a Curious East Indian Fish sauce [i.e. a sauce for fish], which for its peculiar rich Flavour exceeds every thing of the kind hitherto made use of’ (Public Advertiser, 10 May). The ingredients remain a mystery.