John Evelyn, Cook

John Evelyn (1620-1706) was a virtuoso, scholar and man of letters of Restoration England. His diary is required reading, his architectural and environmental treatises were prophetic, and his gardening was legendary.

Among his manuscripts, now in the British Library, is a volume of receipts or recipes: for the stillroom, the sickroom and the kitchen. Those of cookery are printed here; in an edition that includes a full glossary, index of ingredients and biographical introduction.

The recipes range wide over the repertoire of the seventeenth-century household; from liver puddings to excellent syllabubs. They include items picked up on his travels in Europe, as well as favourites given him by friends – such as that for gooseberry wine contributed by Sir Christopher Wren.

The manuscript has an added attraction: it contains the recipes that Evelyn later printed in his book about salads, Acetaria. No other printed cookery book from this period can demonstrate this development of a recipe from first inception to the finished page.