The first modern cookbook wasn’t written by a chef, but by a poet named Eliza Acton. Before she published Modern Cookery for Private Families in 1845, Acton was known for her sentimental poetry. Her poetic background is evident in her culinary writing, especially in her recipe for sponge cake, where she instructs readers to use refined sugar and lemon rind in a way that almost reads like poetry. When her cookbook was released in Britain, it was praised for its beautiful prose. Nearly two centuries later, Acton’s influence extends beyond her elegant writing. She was one of the first to create well-organized recipes for the average home cook, helping to shape the modern cookbook.
Before Acton’s time, cookbooks existed but were quite different from what we know today. The earliest recorded recipes come from the Yale culinary tablets, dating back to 1700 BCE. These ancient Mesopotamian clay slabs contain lists of ingredients and basic instructions, mostly for stews. These recipes were likely intended for royalty, not everyday cooks. Later cookbooks, like the Roman De Re Coquinaria from the 5th century, were similarly vague. For example, a recipe for wine sauce for truffles simply lists ingredients like pepper and honey without detailed instructions.
For centuries, cookbooks were reserved for the elite. They often included recipes for luxurious dishes like peacock and flamingo, which were not part of the average household diet. These books served as memory aids for royal chefs or as status symbols for the wealthy, showcasing the extravagant tastes of high society.
Eliza Acton was born in Sussex, England, in 1799. She grew up in a household connected to a brewery, which exposed her to the culinary world early on. However, her path to becoming a cookbook author wasn’t straightforward. She initially ran boarding schools and pursued poetry before turning to culinary writing. Her first cookbook, Modern Cookery for Private Families, was published in 1845. Unlike previous cookbooks, Acton’s work was aimed at middle-class home cooks, not private chefs for the wealthy. Her recipes were practical and accessible, featuring dishes like chicken pie instead of extravagant feasts.
Acton’s cookbook was groundbreaking in its approach. She was the first to list ingredients with precise measurements separate from the recipe instructions. She thoroughly tested her recipes and provided accurate cooking times, making them easy to follow even for beginners. Although photography wasn’t common in publishing at the time, Acton included clear line drawings to guide cooks. Her writing was not only informative but also enjoyable to read. Later editions of her book included exotic dishes like curries and chutneys, as well as the first English-language mention of “spaghetti.”
Acton’s cookbook was a hit in Britain, with 13 editions printed by 1853. However, her contributions to culinary history were overshadowed by Isabella Beeton, whose cookbook sales surpassed Acton’s in the 1860s. Beeton’s Book of Household Management borrowed heavily from Acton’s work, often without credit. Despite this, Beeton became the more celebrated author.
Eliza Acton continued to write, publishing The English Bread Book for Domestic Use in 1857. This work took a more scholarly approach to culinary arts but was less popular with readers. Acton passed away in 1859 at the age of 59.
Many of the practices Acton pioneered are standard in today’s cookbooks. Her influence can be seen in iconic works like Joy of Cooking and Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which also aim to make cooking accessible to home cooks. In recent years, there has been a push to recognize Acton’s contributions. British author Annabelle Abbs published a novel based on Acton’s life in 2021, and efforts are underway to restore her grave in North London. Acton’s legacy lives on every time a cook consults a recipe’s ingredients list.
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Research the life and contributions of Eliza Acton to the culinary world. Prepare a short presentation highlighting her influence on modern cookbooks, focusing on her innovative approach to recipe writing. Share your findings with the class, emphasizing how her work differs from earlier cookbooks.
Select a modern cookbook and compare it with Eliza Acton’s Modern Cookery for Private Families. Analyze the structure, language, and presentation of recipes. Discuss in a group how Acton’s methods have influenced contemporary cookbooks and what aspects have evolved over time.
Choose a recipe from an early cookbook, such as De Re Coquinaria, and attempt to recreate it using modern ingredients and techniques. Document your process and results, and present your experience to the class, discussing the challenges and insights gained from working with historical recipes.
Inspired by Eliza Acton’s poetic background, write your own recipe in a poetic format. Focus on using descriptive language and vivid imagery to convey the cooking process. Share your poetic recipe with classmates and discuss how creative writing can enhance the culinary experience.
Engage in a class debate on the contributions of Eliza Acton versus Isabella Beeton to the world of cookbooks. Research their respective works and influence, and argue for who you believe had a more significant impact on culinary history. Use evidence from their writings to support your position.
Here’s a sanitized version of the transcript, with spelling and formatting corrected for clarity:
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The first modern cookbook was penned not by a chef but by a poet. Before Eliza Acton published *Modern Cookery for Private Families* in 1845, she was known for crafting lush, sentimental verse. Her background is apparent in her culinary writing, particularly in her recipe for a good sponge cake, where she instructs readers to rasp on some lumps of well-refined sugar, the rind of a fine, sound lemon, and scrape off the part that has imbibed the essence. If it were written in iambic pentameter, it would read like English literature homework. Acton’s first cookbook was praised for its striking prose when it was released in Britain. Nearly two centuries later, her impact extends far beyond her elegant turns of phrase. As one of the first authors to publish well-organized recipes aimed at the average home cook, she helped invent the cookbook as we know it today.
Hi, I’m Justin Dodd. Welcome to Food History. Many cookbooks predate *Modern Cookery*, but they hardly resemble the volumes you keep on your shelves at home. The Yale culinary tablets date back as far as 1700 BCE and contain the earliest recorded culinary recipe ever discovered. Though the term “recipe” may be a stretch, the ancient Mesopotamian clay slabs are inscribed with ingredients and some instructions for what to do with them. Experts have interpreted these lists as the basis for various dishes, mostly different types of stew. Mentioned civilizations really loved their stews, soups, and slops. They weren’t the polished recipes familiar to modern home cooks; they were likely written for royalty. Cookbooks written centuries later were not much clearer. The recipe for wine sauce for truffles from the famous Roman recipe book *De Re Coquinaria* from the 5th century simply lists pepper, lavage, coriander, broth, honey, and a little oil. The *Forme of Cury*, which was written by the chefs of King Richard II around 1390, was only slightly more descriptive. A recipe for saffron rice instructs cooks to soak rice well in a good broth, leaving the definition of terms like “well” and “good” up to interpretation.
Unclear writing aside, early recipes weren’t meant to be accessible. For centuries, cookbooks were limited to the grandest palaces, and when they weren’t being used in royal kitchens, they were flaunted as status symbols. This is why early cookbooks contain instructions for cooking luxury items like peacock, flamingo, and other dishes that were missing from average households. It seems that the writers of these cookbooks assumed their chef readers already knew how to cook the dishes, so a lack of instruction wasn’t considered a problem. The books were more like memory aids for royal chefs. For non-royal upper classes, they were sort of like a window into what was in vogue with the highest echelons of society, like, you know, eating flamingo.
Apparently, opaque recipes written for the wealthy were still the status quo when Eliza Acton was born in Sussex, England, in 1799. She was exposed to the culinary sciences at a young age, growing up in a house connected to the brewery where her father worked. However, her path to writing about food professionally wasn’t straightforward. She ran boarding schools for girls before getting serious about poetry in her 20s. In 1826, she made her literary debut with a collection titled *Poems*. Her examinations of themes like unrequited love were rich with images of flowers, moonlight, and other usual suspects of the medium. As for whether her poetry was any good, authors Mary Aylett and Olive Ordish shared their opinions on it in their 1965 culinary history book *First Catch Your Hare*. They described her work as romantic, derivative, and often banal. The command of the cliché, which she displays in her verse, is happily not repeated in her works on gastronomy.
Acton’s motivation for pivoting to recipes is debated among experts. According to one story, her publisher encouraged her to write a book on cookery, which was a popular topic at the time. She published her first cookbook, *Modern Cookery for Private Families*, in 1845. Its full original title was *Modern Cookery in All Its Branches, Reduced to a System of Easy Practice for the Use of Private Families, and a Series of Practical Receipts Which Have Been Strictly Tested and Are Given with the Most Minute Exactness*. Unlike recipes of the past, Acton’s book wasn’t written with extravagant feasts in mind; it catered to middle-class home cooks making meals for their families, not private chefs cooking for their wealthy employers. Instead of feathered peacock, for example, she included a recipe for common chicken pie.
Though food preparation was a hot subject in the mid-19th century, no one approached it like Acton did. Her cookbook was the first to list ingredients with precise measurements separate from the body of the recipe. She tested her recipes thoroughly and gave accurate cooking times for each dish. *Modern Cookery* didn’t assume its readers knew their way around the kitchen; instead, it provided a roadmap even amateurs could follow. Photography wasn’t widely used in publishing at this time; the first book illustrated with photographs was published just two years prior, in 1843. In its place, she used clear line drawings to help cooks with tasks like selecting meat at the butcher. On top of everything, her writing was as enjoyable to read as her dishes were to eat. Her recipes were conceived for humble kitchens, but that didn’t make them pedestrian. Later editions of the book featured many dishes that would have been considered exotic in Victorian England, such as curries and chutneys. The book also included the first English-language usage of “spaghetti” in print, describing the pasta as Naples vermicelli. Most recipes in the book, like her mince meat pudding and fashionable apple dumplings, are classic British fare.
Acton’s elegant, approachable cookbook was a hit with the British public. By 1853, 13 editions had been printed. So why isn’t she as well-known today as some of her peers? Her contributions to culinary history have largely been overshadowed by Isabella Beeton, the British author whose cookbook sales outpaced Acton’s in the 1860s. Though Mrs. Beeton’s *Book of Household Management* became the more popular title, it owes much of its legacy to *Modern Cookery*. Beeton even included many of Acton’s recipes in her book without giving her credit. Despite rampant plagiarism, Beeton remains the more celebrated of the two Victorian female cookbook authors.
Over a century and a half later, Eliza Acton was never able to replicate the success of *Modern Cookery for Private Families*. She published *The English Bread Book for Domestic Use* in 1857, which took a more serious and scholarly look at the culinary arts than her previous work. Readers were less interested in the shady adulteration practices of flour millers at the time than they were in easy-to-follow recipes, and the book wasn’t reprinted until well after her death. Acton died in 1859 at the age of 59.
Many of the practices pioneered by Eliza Acton are standard in cookbooks today. *Joy of Cooking* by Irma S. Rombauer and *Mastering the Art of French Cooking* by Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle, and Julia Child became two of the most iconic cookbooks of the 20th century, due in part to their accessible recipes aimed at the humble home cook. Writing recipes with measurements, cooking times, and separate ingredients lists is also the norm for cookbooks today. Thanks, Eliza!
In recent years, there has been a push to give Eliza Acton the recognition she’s due. British author and historian Annabelle Abbs published a novel based on Acton’s life in 2021, which was optioned as a mini-series by CBS in 2022. Abbs launched a campaign to fund the restoration of her grave at Hampstead Parish Church in North London, which has fallen into disrepair. If her advocates have their way, Eliza Acton’s name will one day be as recognizable as Isabella Beeton or Julia Child. Until then, her legacy lives on every time a cook reads a recipe’s ingredients list and realizes they’re out of garlic.
We have an upcoming video about everybody’s favorite canned meat, Spam. If you have any fun facts about the pink delicacy or have any questions you want answered, leave them in the comments below. Don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t yet to stay up to date with all your food history news, and I’ll see you next time!
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This version maintains the original content while improving readability and correcting errors.
Cookbook – A book containing a collection of recipes and other information about the preparation and cooking of food. – In her literature class, Maria analyzed how the Victorian-era cookbook reflected the cultural values and domestic expectations of the time.
Poetry – A literary form that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings beyond the prose’s literal meaning. – The professor emphasized how Romantic poetry often reflects the historical context of the Industrial Revolution and its impact on nature and society.
Recipes – Instructions for preparing a particular dish, including a list of the ingredients required. – The medieval manuscript contained recipes that provided insight into the dietary habits and culinary practices of the period.
Culinary – Relating to cooking or the kitchen. – The culinary traditions of ancient Rome were explored through historical texts that detailed their elaborate feasts and banquets.
History – The study of past events, particularly in human affairs. – The history of the Renaissance is often explored through its rich literary output, which includes works by Shakespeare and Machiavelli.
Ingredients – Any of the foods or substances that are combined to make a particular dish. – The novel used the metaphor of ingredients in a recipe to symbolize the diverse cultural influences that shaped the protagonist’s identity.
Writing – The activity or skill of marking coherent words on paper and composing text. – Writing in the Enlightenment era was characterized by a focus on reason and scientific inquiry, as seen in the works of Voltaire and Rousseau.
Legacy – Something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor from the past. – The legacy of ancient Greek literature is evident in the enduring influence of Homeric epics on Western storytelling traditions.
Cooking – The practice or skill of preparing food by combining, mixing, and heating ingredients. – Historical texts reveal that cooking in medieval Europe was not only a necessity but also an art form that reflected social status and wealth.
Society – The aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community. – The literature of the 19th century often critiqued the rapidly changing society brought about by industrialization and urbanization.
