Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management — Special Thanksgiving Gift Edition [EPUB]

"The turkey, for which fine bird we are indebted to America, is certainly one of the most glorious presents made by the New World to the Old." Isabella Beeton wrote that in 1861 — about an American bird, in a British book, two years before Thanksgiving became a national American holiday. This gift edition is built, honestly, on that sentence.

Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management — Special Thanksgiving Gift Edition is an editor-created THANKSGIVING SELECTION from the 1861 FIRST EDITION (London: S. O. Beeton, issued in twenty-four monthly parts, 1859–1861). It is not the complete Book of Household Management, and it is not a lost Beeton Thanksgiving book — no such book exists, and this edition says so. Beeton never names Thanksgiving. What she gives the feast is everything else: her complete teaching on the cookery behind it, and the bird at its centre.

Inside: six chapters printed complete — the Introduction to Cookery (IV), the General Directions for Making Soups (V), and her observations on birds (XX), vegetables (XXIV), puddings and pastry (XXVI), and creams and jellies (XXVIII); 62 recipes chosen course by course, every one with Beeton's own § number — Oyster Soup (§196) and Turkey Soup (§188); Bread Sauce in both its makings (§§371–372), Celery Sauce (§387), Chestnut Sauce (§390), Forcemeat (§417), Oyster Forcemeat (§489) and Sausage-Meat Stuffing (§520); the turkey nine ways, from Boiled Turkey (§986) and Roast Turkey (§990) to Croquettes (§987), Fricasseed (§988) and Hashed Turkey (§989) for the days after, with Roast Pheasant (§1041) as the alternative bird; thirteen vegetables from Brussels Sprouts (§1096) to Potato Snow (§1148); plum puddings (§§1324, 1326), mincemeats and Mince Pies (§§1309–1311), Apple Tart (§1233), Pears à l'Allemande (§1470) and Red-Currant Jelly (§1533); breads (§§1719, 1721, 1739) and Coffee and Chocolate (§§1807, 1810). Her November bills of fare from Dinners and Dining (§§2095–2100) are printed as she wrote them — grand dinners and plain family dinners alike — and five of the 1861 edition's chromolithograph colour plates are reproduced in colour.

Two things a Thanksgiving cook expects are NOT here, and the edition says so rather than fake them: there is no cranberry sauce (the word "cranberries" occurs once in Beeton — as something Norwegian black-cocks eat; her red-currant jelly holds the place), and there is no pumpkin pie (her pumpkin is Preserved Pumpkin, §1584, and it is included, as itself). There is no sweet-potato recipe either — she esteems it, in a sentence printed with §1146, and never cooks it.

Because this is a gift edition, it opens with a gift inscription page and a Thanksgiving Record page (year, host, guests, menu, gratitudes) to be kept year by year. The editor adds an introduction, two menus built entirely from the selection (The Beeton Thanksgiving; A Smaller November Dinner), a guide to the selection, full conversion tables for her imperial measures, discussion questions — and safety notes that must be read: Beeton's directions to hang a turkey and to stuff it before roasting belong to 1861 and must never be followed; the edition gives the modern practice (refrigerate, thaw safely, cook dressing separately, roast to 165 °F) plainly and prominently.

Isabella Beeton; Editor: Horace Harriott Jr. Public domain worldwide (the author died in 1865).