Mock Oyster Sauce & A Cure For Corns

In the 1820s a middle class housewife in Fulham, London, collected recipes and household hints from her friends and relatives and kept them in a notebook - not a comprehensive 'recipe book' but an idiosyncratic record of friendships and favourites. Over 190 years later Louise Allen found the battered document and transcribed it for this book. Mrs Jean Mills collected receipts for such diverse dishes as veal pie, pillau rice, muffin pudding and English champagne along with face creams, dubious medical remedies, household hints and instructions for growing mistletoe. There is a comprehensive glossary of unfamiliar ingredients and methods and the story of Jean Forbes's journey from a marriage in India through widowhood to a happy second marriage to civil servant and businessman George Mills. This is a fascinating glimpse into middle class social history in the Regency.