OP: Adam's Luxury and Eve's Cookery
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Prospect Books, 1983 [1744]. Hardcover. Fine.
A catchy title for an 18th century book on gardening!
This facsimile, published by Prospect Books in 1983, is an attractive edition and a pleasant read for historians and gardeners alike.
The author is anonymous but authoritative, first listing alphabetically—ending with the letter T for turnips (sorry, zucchini fanatics)—common garden plants, their uses and properties, and how to grow them.
This is followed by a “kitchen-gardener’s kalendar,” which dictates the “work proper to be done” for each month, including starting hotbeds for cucumbers and melons in February and transplanting cauliflower under “bell-glasses to stand the winter.” The final portion includes recipes with a focus on the products of one’s garden labor, so they are largely vegetarian.
Once you are accustomed to the long Ss and curious spelling (spinage, collyflower, plumbs), Adam’s Luxury and Eve’s Cookery is both informative and engaging. Further research on some unfamiliar ingredients reveals that boor-cole is a now out-of-use word for kale; coastmary is an herb once used medicinally for menstrual cramps or as a laxative; and ashen keys are the seed pods of the ash tree, which may be pickled.
Our copy is Fine and unused. Bound in publisher's green cloth, top edge gilt. No jacket, as issued.
