Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management

I got Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management last year and now, as I was studying the period, I thought it would be a good time to read it. Well, this is a fascinating book, offering a really good insight into what the middle classes treasured at that time. I found some of the things mentioned in the book at least surprising.

This book is known as a cookbook and Mrs. Beeton was as known to Victorians as Mary Berry is to us today. Although poor Mrs. Beeton did not get the chance to reach a respectable age, dying at 28, in childbed. Her book is on household management and she talks about all sorts of things, how to deal with servants, what each role of the domestic servants is, with plenty of details. For a newly married middle-class woman, her book must have been extremely valuable. Furthermore, she talks about child-care and even poisons.

I’ve included the book in the cookbooks section of the blog mostly for lack of a better category, but this entices me to talk about her recipes. I’ve tried one and here is the link to it, if you fancy knowing more. My version is abridged.

Each section in the recipe chapters starts with a short description, of a few pages. She lists the ingredients, which was something new in a cookbook, continues with the mode of preparation, before giving the time needed to prepare the dish. On top of that, she gives the average cost, how many people it served, and when it was seasonable. Some recipes, like the macaroni that you can see in the picture, are followed by a short description of the ingredient.

For us this is how all recipes should look like, but, when it was first published in 1861, it was innovative and new. I showed a few recipes to my husband and he found her short descriptions at the end of the recipes just as interesting as I did.

Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management

Details about the picture: the macaroni are after a recipe by Mrs Beeton’s.
My rating: 5/5 Stars
Would I recommend it: yes
Published by: Oxford University Press
Year it was published: 2008 (first published in 1861)
Format: Paperback
Genre(s): Cookbook
Pages: 629

About the author: Isabella Mary Beeton (née Mayson) is universally known as Mrs Beeton. Born on 12 March 1836, she was the English author of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, and is one of the most famous cookery writers.
Of the 1,112 pages, over 900 contained recipes, such that another popular name for the volume is “Mrs Beeton’s Cookbook”. Most of the recipes were illustrated with coloured engravings, and it was the first book to show recipes in a format that is still used today. It was intended as a guide of reliable information for the aspirant middle classes. Mrs Beeton is perhaps described better as its compiler and editor than as its author, many of the passages clearly being not her own words.
She died on 60 February 1865.
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