Tenth edition of Charlotte Mason's famous housekeeping book on cookery, supplying the table and managing the gardens around the house, first published in 1773. Although called the ninth edition on the title-page, Cagle calls it the tenth (the ESTC gives 8 entries to ca. 1800 and other sources add an 1801 edition). Charlotte Mason was a professed housekeeper. Her preface says she wrote this book because there were, next to all the cookery books, fewer books that prescribe how to regulate all these dishes on the table.
The book opens with bills of fare, listing several dishes for one or more courses for (family) dinners, including a schematic view on how to supply the table. She made these bills of fare for up to fifteen dishes. A large section follows, comprising recipes, including some for soups, stews, sauces for fish, poultry and meat, a wide variety of pickled vegetables, pies, puddings, custards, cakes and other sweets. She also gives much attention to different kind of fruits and mushrooms and how to preserve and dry them, and she gives an extensive description of several spices (ginger, turmeric, nutmeg, etc.) and other ingredients (pasta, oil, sugar, truffles, peppers). Some recipes are extensive, listing every step one has to take, while others are only two-line remarks about a dish. In this section she also discusses cooking techniques, such as how to pickle or stew certain kinds of meat, and the brewing and making of several kinds of drinks, for example brandies, lemonades and wines.
After this, Mason lists the food in season for every month of the year, such as meat, poultry, fish, fruits, vegetables and herbs. After this overview follows a more scientific section, which is very interesting. It includes remarks on "kitchen-poisoning", "containing cautions relative to the use of laurel-leaves, hemlock, mushrooms, copper-vessels, earthen-jars" and so on. When quoting several ancient and contemporary scientific authorities, she explains the dangers or risks of using some products in the kitchen and gives the corresponding remedies. She ends this scientific section with some remarks on the adulteration of bread and flour and with remarks on several kinds of water used for cooking and their purity.
The book ends with an appendix with information on breeding, rearing and managing of poultry, on the making of cheeses and butter, but especially on the management of the kitchen garden and the fruit garden. It clearly notes for every month which vegetables, herbs or fruits can be sown or harvested, and how to care for these plants. This makes this cookery book a very practical handbook not only for the kitchen, but in a broader sense of common life: it compromises the whole cycle of fruit and vegetables from the garden to one's mouth, sitting - of course - at a beautifully arranged table.
With several owner's inscriptions on the paste-downs and on the first and last endleaves, including an inscription of "Prudence Allen, 1809". Binding rebacked and a little worn. Some browning and foxing throughout the book, with some stains, especially at the last leaves, not affecting the text. Otherwise in good condition. Cagle, pp. 621-623; cf. Bitting, pp. 313-314 (other eds.); Vicaire, cols. 572-573 (1773 & 1775 edition).