Mary Hooper and Victorian cooking

The author of Mirrormist posted some great quotes which show a little more about Victorian dinner and cooking habits, like this one about ordering food to the house:

“Of the making of cookery books there is no end; and I hold it to be rather a public benefit than otherwise that there should be scarcely a solution of continuity in the production of culinary manuals; because, although in the vast majority of cookery books (always excepting the late Miss Acton and the Happily living Miss Mary Hooper) there is usually a considerable proportion of nonsense, there is scarcely one (especially if it be compiled by a lady) that does not contain hints always entertaining and occasionally useful on the subject of household management. As to the Art of Cookery, it is rapidly retrograding, and will retrograde more swiftly still, as well-to-do middle class people grow more and more “stuck up,” and have their “set dinners” sent in from the pastry cook’s instead of having them cooked at home.” (From “The Illustrated London News” in 1882)

And this one, from the book “Paris Herself again in 1878-9″
“I have always fancied that one reason why cookery books are, as a rule, such an excellent property to the publishers thereof is that newly-married couples are in the habit of presenting a copy of the last edition of Francatelli or Mary Hooper to their cooks. The volumes are reasonably well bound, to be sure; but of all Places of Destruction I know none more ruinous than a kitchen; and in a very short space of time the cookery book comes to grief. Either the cat steals it — a cat would steal the new chimes of St. Paul’s, belfry and all — or the kitchen-maid lights the fire with it, or it gets into the cook’s drawer — that ‘chaos come again’ — and is seen no more. So additional copies of Francatelli or Mary Hooper are demanded, and the publishers dance jigs of delight.”

You can read much more about Mary Hooper and read her books as well, here! There I found this recipe for Warwickshire Pudding, apart from the suet it sounds fairly good!

Warwickshire Pudding
Butter a pint-and-a-half tart-dish, lay it in a layer of
light bread, cut thin, on this sprinkle a portion of two
ounces of shred suet, and of one ounce of lemon
candid-peel, chopped very fine. Fill the dish lightly
with layers of bread, sprinkling over each a little of
the suet and peel.
Boil a pint of milk with two ounces of sugar, pour
it on two eggs, beaten for a minute, and add it to the
pudding just before putting it into the oven; a little
extract of lemon or shred lemon-peel may be added
to the custard. Bake the pudding in a very slow
oven for an hour.