Robert May (chef)

Robert May
Born 1588
Died in or after 1664
Occupation Chef

Robert May (1588 – in or after 1664[1]) was an English professional chef who trained in France and worked in England.[2][3] He is best known for writing and publishing the 1660 cookbook The Accomplisht Cook.

Background

May was born in Wing, Buckinghamshire to Edwarde and Joan Mayes in 1588, however he was not baptised until 2 April 1592.[1] His father worked at Ascott Park as the chief cook to the Dormer family.[1]

At age ten, May was sent to Paris by Lady Dormer—where he trained for five years to become a chef.[1][2] Following his training, he served his apprenticeship in London,[4] working for Arthur Hollinsworth (cook to the Grocer's Hall and Star Chamber).[1] After his apprenticeship, May returned to Wing and became one of the five cooks reporting to his father at Ascott Park.[1]

In the mid-1630s Sir Anthony Browne employed May to be the chef at his country estate (Cowdray House) in west Sussex.[2][5]

May was of the Catholic faith,[6] and worked for a total of thirteen households of minor English nobility[4] (including many aristocratic Catholic families) until the English Civil War (1642–1651).[2][5]

The Accomplisht Cook

Frontispiece from Robert May's The Accomplisht Cook (1671 edition)

Following the civil war, May wrote and published The Accomplisht Cook which he subtitled Or the Art and Mystery of Cooking.[5] The work was first published in 1660, and the last revision made during the author's lifetime was published in 1665.[6] The 1685 edition of the work (at least its fifth) contains about 300 pages.[7] May's work is considered to be the first major recipe book to be published in England (prior to that, most cooks carefully guarded the secrets of their profession).[5]

May's recipes included customs from the Middle Ages, however he also embraced food trends from Europe—for example by including dishes such as French bisque and Italian brodo (broth).[4] The Accomplisht Cook is still considered to be one of "the most extensive English treatment of potages, broths, and soups", with about 20 percent of the volume devoted to them.[4]

May wrote the following in the introduction to the work:[5]

To all honest and well- intended persons of my profession, and others, this book can not but be acceptable, as it plainly and profitably discovers the mystery of the whole art; for which, though I may be envied by some, that only value their private interests above posterity and the public good; yet,(he adds) God and my own conscience would not permit me to bury theses, my experiences, with my silver hair in the grave.

Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook, 1665.

In addition to the large collection of recipes, the work contains a memoir of the author.[6]

When a 1678 edition of the book was discovered and put up for sale in 2007, auctioneer Charles Hanson said "No more than 200 of these books were ever printed in the period".[8]

Sample recipes

The following is a recipe in which May used salt cod in a pie:[9]

Being boiled, take it [the salt cod] from its skin and bones, and mince it with some pippins [apples], season it with nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, pepper, caraway-seed, currans, minced raisons, rose-water, minced lemon peel, sugar, slic't [sliced] dates, white wine, verjuice [sour fruit juice, in this case probably from apples], and butter, fill your pyes, bake them, and ice them.

Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook, 1665.

The following is May's recipe for Lumber Pie:[2]

Take some grated bread, and beef-suet cut into bits like great dice, and some cloves and mace, then some veal or capon minced small with beef suet, sweet herbs, fair sugar, the yolks of six eggs boil'd hard and cut in quarters, put them to the other ingredients, with some barberries, some yolks of raw eggs, and a little cream, work up all together and put it in the caul of veal like little sausages; then bake them in a dish, and being half baked have a pie made and dried in the oven ; put these puddings into it with some butter, verjuyce sugar, some dates on them, large mace, grapes, or barberries, and marrow – being baked, serve it with a cut cover on it, and scrape sugar on it.

Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook, 1665.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 WingopsOrg. "Robert May - The Accomplisht Cook". wing-ops.org.uk. Retrieved 2 July 2011.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Hillary Short (29 March 2010). "Robert May's "The Accomplisht Cook", Cowdray Palace's Tudor Kitchen and Lumber Pie". hillaryshort.wordpress.com. Retrieved 30 June 2011.
  3. ↑ Robert May (28 September 2007). "The Project Gutenberg EBook of The accomplisht cook, by Robert May". eBook #22790 (introduction). gutenberg.org. Retrieved 30 June 2011.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 ChefTalk.com. "History Of Soup". Articles. cheftalk.com. Retrieved 30 June 2011.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 O'Flynn, Maurice. "England's First Celebrity Chef". champchefs.com. Retrieved 30 June 2011.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 FoodReference.com. "The Accomplisht Cook, 1665-1685". foodreference.com. Retrieved 30 June 2011.
  7. ↑ May, Robert (1685). "The Project Gutenberg EBook of The accomplisht cook, by Robert May". eBook #22790 (main). gutenberg.org. Retrieved 30 June 2011.
  8. ↑ Brough, Graham (6 January 2007). "BRITAIN'S 1st CELEBRITY CHEF; 329-year-old cook book discovered". London, England: The Mirror. Retrieved 29 July 2012 – via HighBeam. (subscription required (help)).
  9. ↑ Kurlansky, Mark (2002). Salt: a world history. New York: Walker Publishing Company Inc. p. 115. ISBN 0-8027-9862-4. Retrieved 30 June 2011.

External links