From feigned glory & Usurped Throne
And all the Greatnesse to me falsly shown
And from the Arts of Government set free
See how Protectresse & a Drudge agree
– Inscription below frontispiece portrait (left)
The Court & Kitchin of Elizabeth, Commonly called Joan Cromwel, the Wife of the Late Usurper (1664) is framed as a satirical cookbook. The title page promises its readers “satisfaction,” a play on the Latin satura that invites a double-entendre: we are well fed by the recipes themselves, but likewise satiated with satire. The book features a scathing political introduction that characterizes the Cromwells as “wanton in the abundance of their spoyl & rapine” (2r) and Elizabeth Cromwell in particular as cheap and vulgar, character flaws that promise to be made self-evident in her collection of recipes. In an extended and strained metaphor, Cromwell’s political “butchery” (5r) is likened to Elizabeth’s “cookery” (5v), leading into a collection of recipes that constitute the bulk of the book.
The author appeals to the reader on the first page that the text not be considered “an insultory, unmanlike Invective and Triumph over the supposed miserable and forlorn estate” (1r) of the Cromwells and especially Elizabeth herself, but rather as a just repayment for their own sponsored attacks in print on the country’s previous sovereigns. The “guilt” of Elizabeth Cromwell, the author claims, “cannot be made worse or more odious,” and as such, he sees no reason to be an “immodest and immoderate Fabulist” (4v). Some extant copies of the book, though not the one held by the Burns Library and digitized here, include the frontispiece portrait (pictured above), and below, an inscription of Elizabeth admitting not only to her unrightful elevation to Protectress of the realm but also to her parsimonious housewifery, out of accordance with presumed grandeur of Whitehall and a family who sought to present themselves as outwardly elegant and refined. Many were indeed surprised, the author claims, that Oliver Cromwell “was so little guilty of any luxurious and Epicurean Excesses either in his meat or drink” (though sometimes he drank liberally, apparently as a way to ease the ailment of kidney stones) (7r-7v). However, more than Oliver’s own proclivities, the author sees the Protector’s wife as the reason behind these tastes. Elizabeth was afraid her fortunes would turn, that she would be forced into an “indigent Condition” (10v) once again, and thus, from her first arrival in London, went about re-selling a variety of good food – “Westphalia Hals, Neats Tongues, Puncheons, and Teirces of French Wine, Runlets and Bottles of Sack; all manner of Preserves and Comfits” (12v) – that was gifted to her. But although no sumptuous cuisine was offered in the Cromwells’ household, Elizabeth and her servants hungrily partook of it by dining in the homes of others and taking the leftovers.
Despite this great satirical invective and the promise of politically revelatory recipes, the recipes collected in the book include nothing so farcical as instructions for a stew made of Royalists. Though a few select recipes reference the culinary or hosting preferences of the Cromwell family, nearly all of them can be traced to other cookbooks of the period – namely Robert May’s The Accomplisht Cook (1660), William Rabisha’s The Whole Book of Cookery Dissected (1661), and Hannah Woolley’s The Gentlewomans Companion (1673), The Accomplish’d Lady’s Delight (1675), and The Compleat Servant-Maid (1677). Many of the recipes can be found in more than one cookbook, and these links appear in the annotations. Slight variations and possible copying errors raise the question of genealogy and the network occupied by the printers of these texts, which makes this text particularly promising for future research into book history or food studies. More than anything, this is a rather lazy collection of popular recipes that had already appeared elsewhere in print, offering a snapshot into seventeenth century culinary taste.
Relatively little has been written about this text. Charles Dickens, Jr. (the son of the great novelist) makes note of his copy of “Cromwell’s Cookery-Book” in All The Year Round (1876) as “a thoroughly cozy and companionable book for a quiet night at the fireside,” which he suggests was written by a former cook at Whitehall and a truthful account of the Cromwells, albeit “sullied here and there by Cavalier slander.” Dickens also insists on viewing the cookbook in a nostalgic and patriotic vein, a testament to the simple, hearty, and quintessentially English diet before the great influence of French and Dutch cuisine – although these influences are most certainly present in its pages. “The general diet seems to us the very model of honest, hearty, English cookery, mingled with Dutch dishes,” he writes, “and much such a cuisine as prevailed in Shakespeare’s time, though without ambergris and such nasty introductions of medieval times.” As a bit of a nineteenth century foodie it would seem, he takes his reader through a number of recipes, some in their entirety, and pausing at “To make a Neat’s-Tongue Pie” to interject, “how good that sounds — in faith it’s music to my ear!” It seems that even to a nineteenth century reader, the main appeal of this book was its collation of recipes, not the anti-Cromwellian sentiment that frames the introductory materials. However, the sense that this cookbook is somehow more nationalistic or patriotic than its (plagiarized) counterparts like May, Rabisha, or Woolley and might be singled out as such adds an intriguing wrinkle to this chapter of English food history and its intersection with social and political thought.