Superior Cookery (Twenty-Fifth Thousand)

As the title suggests, this cookbook was focused on finer food than Black’s previous work. The text opens with a short introduction in which Black writes that she has produced the book ‘at the solicitation of many pupils and friends’ and that ‘The Recipes given in this volume, like all the others which I have already issued, have been tested in my various classes, and are thus thoroughly reliable’ (1890: 3). Black clearly linked her cookbooks to her work at the West-End Training School of Cookery, and used her experience as an educator who taught and demonstrated cookery to ensure she gave her reader workable recipes that were derived from experience. Rather than opening this book with an analysis of the nutritive constituents of food as in her earlier text, Black simply writes that ‘no pains have been spared in the selection of the Recipes, which are of extensive variety, and embrace many choice and popular dishes likely to prove acceptable to the general public’ (1890: 3). This cookbook seems to be centred on fashion, rather than health which is not mentioned in the introduction as it was previously. Later in the cookbook there are still 13 pages directed to invalid recipes, however.

The chapter on ‘Sick Room Cookery’ is the second-last in the cookbook, and consists of 35 recipes, so is more extensive than the chapter in Household Cookery and Laundry Work, despite the latter’s more explicit focus on health.

Not only are there more recipes in Superior Cookery, but there is a far larger focus on substantial meals, 17 of which are derived from or contain meat (there is another ‘Veal Jelly’ recipe which is almost identical to the one in Household Cookery as the veal and turnip are strained, though the second recipe is simplified). In contrast, 13 recipes don’t contain any meat, and so the majority are based on ‘animal food’. This goes against what Black argued in Household Cookery. Moreover, while there are still recipes based on soft or liquid foods including jellies, ‘Lemon Whey’, ‘Prune Water’, ‘Toast and Water’ and ‘Egg Flip’, far more of the recipes in Superior Cookery instruct the readers how to make dishes with a more solid consistency, like ‘Beef Steak’ and ‘Broiled Trout’. Indeed, many of the recipes in Superior Cookery are quite elaborate when compared to the plain recipes in the previous work in terms of the ingredients they use, and the richness of the meals they create.

To take a few examples from throughout the chapter, ‘Tripe Fricasée’, ‘Beef Pounded or Invalids’ Quenelle’, ‘Chicken en Papillotes’, ‘Stewed Partridge’, ‘Roast Chicken’, ‘Broiled Chicken’ and ‘Quenelle of Fish’ are all recipes in which meat is the main ingredient. Even though Black’s cooking methods of mincing the fish or meat for the quenelles (a rugby-ball shaped fritter, or rissole) would have softened the texture by breaking it down, these dishes still provided the invalid with a more substantial meal than ‘Gruel’ or ‘Beef Tea Pudding’. (https://dishesforthesickroom.com/2021/11/24/margaret-blacks-superior-cookery-1890/)