Cooks
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.