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Cook and wife, Dürer. Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.

Professional cooks were usually men; however, the advice Gervase Markham gives the housewife would apply just as aptly to them.

Cookery. . . is the dressing and ordering of meat, in good and wholesome manner; to which, when our housewife shall address herself, she shall well understand, that these qualities must ever accompany it: first, she must be cleanly both in body and garments, she must have a quick eye, a curious [sensitive] nose, a perfect taste, and a ready ear. . .

She must not be butter-fingered, sweet- toothed, nor faint-hearted; for the first will let everything fall, the second will consume what it should increase, and the last will lose time with too much niceness.

A compilation of Medieval recipes from period sources, with modern adaptations.

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