Traditional Country House Cooking

Drawing on the handwritten recipe books and household accounts in the family archives of four established houses, this book explores the changes and regional differences in British eating from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. Over 100 authentic recipes, modernized for use by today's cook, are combined with portraits of each house and family to produce an informative and practical guide to the great culinary traditions of the British Isles. Tom Jaine focuses on the Fortescue family of Castle Hill in the southwest; Annette Hope draws from the archives of Glamis Castle in Scotland; Jennifer Stead and C. Anne Wilson base their archival portrait on the great Welsh house, Erddig Hall; and Alison, Countess of Rosse, Chatelaine of Birr Castle, Ireland, looks at the housekeeping of her predecessors.