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'A WORK OF QUALITY FOR ALL HOUSEWIVES' -- JACOB CATS, 1625
MAGIRUS, Antonius. Koock-Boeck oft Familieren Keuken-Boeck leerende hoe datmen alderhande Vleesch, Vogelen, Wildtbraedt, ende Visch koken sal: ende wanneer alderhande Spijse ende Wijn op haer beste is. Oock alle maniere(n) van Salaet te maken. Ghedruckt naer de Lovensche Copije, ende op veel plaetsen verbeteert.
Antwerp, Martinus Verhulst, 1655. Small 8vo. With woodcut illustration on title. Contemporary sheepskin parchment wrapper. With a 1944 bookplate by the Vlissingen/Belgian artist Albert Setola for the Belgian folklorist and local historian Hervé Stalpaert.
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Second copy recorded of the second edition of the most important Southern Netherlands book on food and cookery. In 1625, Jacob Cats recommended it as "a work of quality for all housewives and all other young ladies who wish to understand kitchen economics." Writing in the first person in a direct and personal style, the author not only provides 167 recipes, but also gives his opinions as to which ones taste best, which are healthy or unhealthy, what foods and eating customs were normal in the Low Countries of his day and what foods and customs could best be changed. This makes it much more than just a cookbook: it stands alongside De Verstandige Kok (The Sensible Cook), first published in the Northern Netherlands, as our most important sources on food and cooking in the seventeenth-century Low Countries. The woodcut on the title-page (4 x 6 cm, signed "I.V.M.") shows a man basting meat on a spit with a kettle over the fire and numerous kitchen utensils. In public collections we find no copy of the present edition and only one copy each of the other two editions, but one other copy of the present edition and one other copy of the first edition also survive in a private collection.
Antonius Magirus (Greek for "cook") was said in 1739 to be a pseudonym of Peter Scholier (1582-1635), who completed his studies at Louvain in the year the first edition appeared there, and who later wrote satires after Horace and Juvenal. But Schildermans & Sels provide good internal and external evidence against that ascription and suggest Magirus was born ca. 1567/72 and may have simply Latinized his real name, which would have been Anton de Kok or some variant. He was clearly a devoted and knowledgeable gourmet, but not a professional cook, and he advocates sensible restraint over decadent extravagance. Magirus took 135 of his recipes from Bartolomeo Scappi, Opera , Venice, 1570, but Schildermans & Sels note that he made a "programmatic" selection from Scappi's 1017 recipes, specifically aimed at a Low Countries audience, arranged these and 32 others according to their place in a traditional Dutch middle-class meal, and adapted them to the tastes and social standing of his audience and the ingredients available to them locally. First published in Louvain in 1612 (during the Twelve Years' Truce between Spain and The Netherlands), the book saw its present second edition in 1655 (a few years after the end of the Eighty Years' War) and the third and final edition, also at Antwerp, in 1663. The present title-page says the book has been "improved in many passages." It collates A-G8 H4 = 60 leaves. Ferro, followed by Landwehr, knew this edition only from notes made by Van Stockum, perhaps based on one of the two copies now located.
With a 1944 bookplate of the folklorist and local historian Hervé Staelpaert (1914-1981) in Assebroek (in Bruges), Belgium, by his friend the well-known Vlissingen/Belgian artist Albert Setola (1916-1981) on the back of the title-page (neither of Staelpaert's two better-known bookplates: this one features a streetlamp). The wrapper is slightly smaller than the leaves, which are therefore rather dog-eared at the corners, affecting a few page numbers. Otherwise a good copy, with only occasional minor stains. The wrapper is worn, with the back wrapper and spine wrinkled and with a few small holes or tears. An extremely rare essential source for any study of food and cookery in the Low Countries or of cultural history in the Southern Netherlands.
