COOKERY


[PLAT (HUGH)] Delightes for Ladies, to Adorne Their Persons, Tables, Closets, and Distillatories; with Beauties, Banquets, Perfumes and Waters, text within decorative woodcut border, without final leaf (blank except for decorative border), title soiled and repaired at inner margin affecting a few letters, crease and slight printing flaw to A11-12 [ESTC S114736; Oxford p.13 (note); Vicaire 183, "petit volume rare et curieux")], Printed by Humfrey Lownes, 1609--A Closet for Ladies and Gentlewomen. Or, The Art of Preserving, Conserving, and Candying. With the Manner how to make Diverse Kindes of Syrupes: and all Kinde of Banquetting Stuffes, title and text within decorative woodcut borders, occasional minor worming (just affecting text) and dampstaining [ESTC S108092; Oxford p.14 (note)], Printed [by Thomas Purfoot?] for Arthur Johnson, dwelling neare the great North dore of Paules, 1611, 2 works in 1 vol., later calf, covers with double blind rule borders, 12mo
|Two scarce and decorative early recipe books. The first, Delightes for Ladies, "is itself a delight to examine and read. The text of the little book is enclosed in tastefully designed ornamental borders selected by Hugh Plat to bring joy to the eyes of his female readers... its success appears to have been immediate" (Quayle, Old Cook Books, 1978). The book was written by Sir Hugh Plat, the son of a London brewer, and first published in 1600. The dedicatory epistle, signed 'H. Plat', provides a useful list of sweets in vogue at the time, whilst the decorative borders sometimes incorporate the initials 'ER'. A Closet for Ladies, which first appeared in 1608, is very much in a similar vein, the text within slightly less elaborate borders; as a result it has been wrongly attributed to Plat in the past.