First Chefs: Fame and Foodways from Britain to the Americas: Difference between revisions

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** 1710. SB97.T9 Cage
** 1710. SB97.T9 Cage


=== Case 2: Hannah Woolley: The First Female Celebrity Chef ===
==== Case 2: Hannah Woolley: The First Female Celebrity Chef ====
Hannah Woolley was one of the most popular English writers to write about household management in the early modern period. She began publishing books in 1661 after becoming a widow. Her four cookbooks were each published (sometimes in unauthorized editions) many times in the later part of the 17th century. She had a cooking school in addition to a publishing empire, and like Robert May (and Shakespeare!), her books featured an author portrait, biographical material, and verses honoring her. She is considered to be the first woman to earn a living as a food writer.
Hannah Woolley was one of the most popular English writers to write about household management in the early modern period. She began publishing books in 1661 after becoming a widow. Her four cookbooks were each published (sometimes in unauthorized editions) many times in the later part of the 17th century. She had a cooking school in addition to a publishing empire, and like Robert May (and Shakespeare!), her books featured an author portrait, biographical material, and verses honoring her. She is considered to be the first woman to earn a living as a food writer.



Revision as of 15:23, 5 November 2019

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First Chefs: Fame and Foodways from Britain to the Americas, one of the Exhibitions at the Folger, opened on January 19, 2019 and closed on March 31, 2019. First Chefs was co-curated by Associate Director for Fellowships at the Folger Institute Amanda E. Herbert and Curator of Manuscripts and Associate Librarian of Audience Development Heather Wolfe, with assistance from Elizabeth DeBold, the Assistant Curator of Collections at the Folger Shakespeare Library. This exhibition was done in association with Before ‘Farm to Table’: Early Modern Foodways and Cultures, an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation initiative in collaborative research at the Folger Institute.

First Chefs told the stories of the named and unnamed heroes of early modern food culture, and juxtaposes the extravagance of an increasingly cosmopolitan and wealthy upper class against the human cost of its pleasures: the millions of enslaved women, children, and men, servants, gardeners, street criers, and laborers who toiled to feed themselves and many others.

Along the walls of the exhibition, the lives of early modern women and men—rich as well as poor, free and enslaved—who found, made, and ate food were revealed. Through their eyes, the exhibition explored gardens and farms, forests and rivers, plantations and fisheries, markets, kitchens, food stalls, and dining halls. At the center of the exhibition were the five “First Chefs,” whose stories were told through their written, material, and imagined legacy.

An interactive screen allowed visitors to page through digitally replicated versions of several of the Folger's manuscript receipt books, the largest collection of seventeenth-century English-language recipe books in the world. This interactive piece was created by Rebecca Niles.

Curation

Amanda E. Herbert is Associate Director at the Folger Institute of the Folger Shakespeare Library, where she runs the Fellowships Program. She holds the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in History from the Johns Hopkins University. She is a historian of the body: gender and sexuality; health and wellness; food, drink, and appetite. Her first book, Female Alliances: Gender, Identity, and Friendship in Early Modern Britain, was published by Yale University Press in 2014, and won the Best Book Award from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women. She has published articles in Gender & History, the Journal of Social History, and Early American Studies, and her fellowships include grants from the American Antiquarian Society, the Huntington Library, and the Yale Center for British Art. She is an editor for The Recipes Project, a Digital Humanities effort based out of the Max Planck Institute in Berlin, and a co-director for Before 'Farm to Table': Early Modern Foodways and Cultures, a $1.5 million Mellon Foundation Initiative in Collaborative Research at the Folger Institute. She is at work on her second book project, Water Works: Faith, Public Health, and Medicine in the British Atlantic, which seeks to refigure and reclaim the early modern spa, not just as a place of elite sociability, but as an important site for the study of the history of public health.

Heather Wolfe is Curator of Manuscripts and Associate Librarian of Audience Development at the Folger Shakespeare Library. She received an MLIS from UCLA and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. She is currently principal investigator of Early Modern Manuscripts Online, co-principal investigator of Shakespeare’s World, curator of Shakespeare Documented, and is co-director of the multi-year, $1.5 million research project Before 'Farm to Table': Early Modern Foodways and Cultures, a Mellon initiative in collaborative research at the Folger Institute of the Folger Shakespeare Library. Her first book, Elizabeth Cary, Lady Falkland: Life and Letters (2000) received the Josephine Roberts Scholarly Edition Award from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women. She has written widely on the intersections between manuscript and print culture in early modern England, and also edited The Trevelyon Miscellany of 1608 (2007), The Literary Career and Legacy of Elizabeth Cary (2007), and, with Alan Stewart, Letterwriting in Renaissance England (2004). Her most recent research explores early modern filing systems and the social circulation of writing paper and blank books.

Elizabeth DeBold is the Assistant Curator of Collections at the Folger Shakespeare Library. As a member of the curatorial team, she has assisted with numerous projects and exhibitions, including Shakespeare Documented, Shakespeare, Life of an Icon, and Beyond Words: Book Illustration in the Age of Shakespeare. Prior to coming to the Folger, she graduated with her Master’s of Science in Library Science from UNC-Chapel Hill, and held a position as part of an IMLS-funded grant at the Duke University Divinity School Library.

To read the insights of the curators alongside some of the objects about which they are discussing, visit our First Chefs’ curator’s insights page. 

Contents of the Exhibition

''First Chefs: Fame and Foodways from Britain to the Americas'' Exhibition Material

Gallery Layout

The exhibition took place in the Great Hall of the Folger Shakespeare Library, and was designed by Shveima Associates. 

Case-by-Case Walkthrough 

Case 1: Thomas Tusser: The Farmer Poet

A highly-educated musician who taught himself to farm, Thomas Tusser (circa 1524-1580) was a household name in England for nearly two centuries. His only publication, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, was written entirely in verse. It was printed twenty-seven times in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries alone, making it the most popular secular poetical work of the English Renaissance. 

In this case, we displayed several different editions of his famous work to get a taste of Tusser’s popularity over time and his understanding of agriculture. 

Items Included
  • Tusser, Thomas, Fiue hundreth points of good husbandry : vnited to as many of good huswiferie, first deuised, [and] nowe lately augmented with diuerse approued lessons concerning hopps [and] gardening, and other needeful matters, together with an abstract before euery moneth, conteining the whole effect of the sayd moneth with a table [and] a preface in the beginning both necessary to be reade, for the better vnderstanding of the booke. 1573. STC 24377.
  • Tusser, Thomas. Five hundred points of good husbandry. : As well for the champion or open countrey, as also for the vvoodland or seuerall, mixed in euery moneth with huswifery, ouer and besides the booke of huswifery. Corrected better ordered and newly augmented to a fourth part more, with diuers other lessons, as a dyet for the farmer, of the properties of winds, plants, hops, hearbs, bees & approued remedies for sheepe and cattle; with many other matters both profitable, & not vnpleasant for the reader. Also two tables, one of husbandry, and the other of huswifery, at the end of the booke, for the better and easier finding out of any matter contayned in the same. 1630. STC 24391.
  • Tusser, Thomas. Five hundred points of good husbandry. : As well for the champion or open countrey, as also for the woodland or several, mixed in every moneth, with houswifery, over and besides the book of houswifery. Corrected, better ordered, and newly augmented to a fourth part more, with divers other lessons, as a diet for the farmer, of the properties of winds, plants, hops, hearbs, bees, and approved remedies for sheep and cattel; with many other matters both profitable, and not unpleasant to the reader. Also two tables, one of husbandry, and the other of houswifery, at the end of the book, for the better and easier finding out of any matter contained in the same. Newly set forth by Thomas Tusser, gent. 1672. T3369.
  • Tusser, Thomas. Five hundred points of husbandry : directing what corn, grass, &c. is proper to be sown, what trees to be planted, how land is to be improved : with whatever is fit to be done for the benefit of the farmer in every month of the year / by Thomas Tusser, esq. ; to which are added, notes and observations explaining many obsolete terms used therein ... ; a work very necessary and useful for gentlemen ... 1744. 189- 493q.
  • Tusser, Thomas. Multiple editions of Five hundred points, in chronological order.
    • 1573, STC 24375
    • 1577, STC 24379
    • 1580, STC 24380
    • 1586, STC 24382
    • 1599, STC 24385.2
    • 1610, STC 24388 copy 1
    • 1610, STC 24388 copy 2
    • 1614, STC 24389
    • 1620, STC 24390 copy 1
    • 1620, STC 24390 copy 2
    • 1638, STC 24392
    • 1710. SB97.T9 Cage

Case 2: Hannah Woolley: The First Female Celebrity Chef

Hannah Woolley was one of the most popular English writers to write about household management in the early modern period. She began publishing books in 1661 after becoming a widow. Her four cookbooks were each published (sometimes in unauthorized editions) many times in the later part of the 17th century. She had a cooking school in addition to a publishing empire, and like Robert May (and Shakespeare!), her books featured an author portrait, biographical material, and verses honoring her. She is considered to be the first woman to earn a living as a food writer.

In Hannah Woolley’s case, we included a variety of authorized editions and unauthorized adaptations of her famous works. 

Items Included
  • Woolley, Hannah. A guide to ladies, gentlewomen and maids : containing directions of behaviour, in all places, companies, relations, and conditions, from their childhood down to old age: viz. As children to parents. Scholars to governours. Single to servants. Virgins to suitors. Married to husbands. Huswifes to the house. Mistresses to servants. Mothers to children. Widows to the world, and as prudent to all. With letters and discourses upon all occasions, with several tales, and the ladies farewell. Whereunto is added, a guide for cook-maids, dairy-maids, chamber-maids, and all others that go to service: the whole being exact rules for the female sex in generall. By Hannah Woolley. 1668. W3278.5.
  • Woolley, Hannah. The accomplish’d ladies delight in preserving, physick, beautifying, and cookery. : Containing, I. The art of preserving, and candying fruits and flowers, and the making of all sorts of conserves, syrups, and jellies. II. The physical cabinet, or excellent receipts in physick and chirurgery, together with some rare beautifying waters, to adorn and add loveliness to the face and body: and also some new and excellent secrets and experiments in the art of angling. III. The compleat cooks guide, or, directions for dressing all sorts of flesh, fowl, and fish, both in the English and French mode, with all sauces and sallets; and the making pyes, pasties, tarts, and custards, with the forms and shapes of many of them. 1684. W3271.
  • Woolley, Hannah. The compleat servant-maid, or, The young maidens tutor : directing them how they may fit, and qualifie themselves for any of these employments, viz. waiting-woman, house-keeper, chamber-maid, cook-maid, under cook-maid, nursery-maid, dairy-maid, laundry-maid, house-maid, scullery-maid : whereunto is added a supplement containing the choicest receipts, and rarest secrets in physick and chyrurgery / composed for the great benefit and advantage of all young maidens. 1683. W3273.8.
  • (Unauthorized adaptation). The compleat servant maid, or, The young maidens tutor : directing them how they may fit, and qualifie themselves for any of these employments, viz. waiting-woman, house-keeper, chamber-maid, cook-maid, under-cook-maid, nursery-maid, dairy-maid, laundry-maid, house-maid, scullery maid : whereunto is added a supplement containing the choicest receipts and rarest secrets in physick and chirurgery / composed for the great benefit and advantage of all young maidens. 1691. 270- 105q.
  • Woolley, Hannah. The queen-like closet, or Rich cabinet : stored with all manner of rare receipts for preserving, candying and cookery. Very pleasant and beneficial to all ingenious persons of the female sex. To which is added, A supplement, presented to all ingenious ladies, and gentlewomen. By Hannah Wolley. 1675. W3284.