[MACIVER, SUSANNA]. Cookery and Pastry, as Taught and Practised by Mrs Maciver, Teacher of Those Arts in Edinburgh. A New Edition, With Additions. To Which are Added, Figures of Dinner and Supper Courses, From Five to Fifteen Dishes. Also, a Correct List of Every Thing in Season for Every Month in the Year. London : printed for C. Elliot and T. Kay opposite Somerset-Place, Strand; and C. Elliot, Edinburgh, MDCCLXXXIX. [1789].
Hardcover. New edition. Coeval leather-bound. Duodecimo, 12⁰, (175 x 100 mm.), pp. 264. Signatures: A⁶ B-L¹² M⁶. Bound in contemporary full calf, gilt rules to smooth spine, red morocco lettering-piece. Bookplate of George Webster to front pastedown. Condition: GOOD. Binding is secure with rubbing to joints and other extremities. Some pen inscription to front pastedown and title-page. Lacking initial and terminal blanks but otherwise the contents are complete and in generally good condition with just minor marks. Scarce.
Note: Mrs Susanna Maciver and her colleague Mrs Frazer ran one of the few schools of cookery for ladies in Edinburgh. After Mrs Maciver's death (c.1790), the school was continued by Mrs Frazer alone. She writes with authority on the food of upper class Edinburgh during one of the city's most interesting periods. The detailed recipes represent regional Scottish cooking for the upper-middle classes (with all its international influences). Recipes for very early modern trifle, orange marmalade, Scots Haggis and Rum Shrub (an early Rum cocktail mix) are a sample of what a well- heeled Scottish lady was expected to know how to prepare in the late 18th century. The haggis recipe is of particular interest, and is one of the earliest to appear, and Mrs MacIver's 'Haggie' is often referred to as the archetype of all modern Scottish haggis.
