Described as the "queen of the dinner party," and hailed as the author of The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, Hannah Glasse would have been 310 on March 28.
In her honour, Google is changing its logo in more than 16 countries to a doodle of her work.
But, Glasse was not recognised for her achievements during her lifetime. Her identity as the author of one of the most popular cookery books was challenged until 1938.
This is her story:
Illegitimate child
Hannah Glasse was born on March 28, 1708, in St Andrews, Holborn, London. Her mother is said to have been Hannah Reynolds, a widow, and her father, Isaac Allgood, was a landowner who was married to another woman, Hannah Clark.
Glasse was brought up in Allgood's home at Simonburn near Hexham. During her education, in spite of being an unwelcome presence in her father's home, she witnessed good living and tasted the foods of the upper class.
Allgood and his wife died of illness by 1725, when Glasse was 16 years old. She later married a soldier of fortune, John Glasse.
a soldier of fortune, John Glasse. Together they had 10 children, of whom only five survived. Needing to raise money to feed her family, Hannah set to writing The Art of Cookery.
Art of Cookery
She began work on The Art of Cookery in 1746, and her ambition was to teach simple, straightforward recipes with the very minimum of expenditure and technical complication.
"I believe I have attempted a Branch of Cookery which nobody has yet thought worth their while to write upon ..." she wrote as her introductory line. The book was first published in 1747.
Her cookbook was a bestseller with the British public due to its conversational style. Preceding cookbooks were written for the chefs of royal and aristocratic households.
The book did not reveal its authorship, except with the signature 'By a Lady'. It included 972 recipes, covering everything from puddings and soups, to what to serve at Lent, to preparing food for the sick.
In her own words, she aimed to accomplish a work "which far exceeds anything of the kind ever yet published."
Bankruptcy
Matthew Cruickshank/Google
Modern English cooking would be nothing without sausages and jelly and trifle (just like American cooking would be nothing with hotdogs and Jell-O and sponge cake).
But before Hannah Glasse, English cooking was little more than cabbage soup and mutton (and the occasional eel pie, if you were lucky!). The woman behind one of Britain's most popular early cookbooks, "The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy" brought simple and accessible cooking to the masses, both in Glasse's homeland of England as well as in America.
Google paid tribute to Glasse's 310th birthday in its doodle on Wednesday, celebrating her contribution to modern cookery, long before Julia Child was on our TV screens.
First published in England in 1747 (and later in America in 1805), "The Art of Cookery" was notable for its conversational language and its "plain and easy" recipes. The book brought cookery within the reach of all classes (not just those fortunate enough to have a cook to do the work for them).
The impressive list of 972 recipes in her book also included some of the first known mentions of now-famous foods, including jelly and Yorkshire Pudding.
Google's doodle, illustrated by Matthew Cruickshank, shows Glasse baking a batch of Yorkshire puddings, ready for the Sunday roast. Very British indeed.
British cookery writer Hannah Glasse (1708-1770) was born 310 years ago today, an anniversary acknowledged in the latest Google Doodle.
Glasse remains best known for her 1747 recipe collection The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, which was published anonymously and remained a best-seller for a century.
One of the work's key innovations was the author's pledge to democratise the business of cookery, promising in an introductory note to readers that the language contained within was intended so that domestic servants could understand it.
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"My intention is to instruct the lower Sort", she wrote, expressing a preference for "pieces of bacon" over "large Lardoons" so as not to confuse the common reader, a commitment to inclusive, democratic language George Orwell might have approved of.
"The great Cooks have such a high way of expressing themselves, that the poor Girls are at a Loss to know what they mean," she said.
This no-nonsense approach sought to demystify the culinary arts, dispelling the myth that gourmet cookery was the exclusive preserve of temperamental continental chefs and could instead be attempted with confidence within the confines of the ordinary British home, paving the way for the popular cooks that followed.
Everyone from Mrs Beeton and Fanny Craddock to Delia Smith, Jamie Oliver and Mary Berry owe a debt to this modest and unassuming author - Hannah Glasse proving Dr Johnson's doubts that a woman could have written such a work profoundly wrong.
The popularity of her book, which was hit by several accusations of plagiary, was such that its fame reached the New World and survived the abiding anti-British sentiment of the American War of Independence: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were all said to own copies.
Glasse's culinary innovations included the first recorded use of jelly in trifle and the first mentions of "Hamburgh sausages" and piccalilli. It even included one of the first English language recipes for making "currey the Indian way".
While the author was dismissive of the contemporary British reverence for French cuisine, she harboured no prejudice:
"I have indeed given some of my Dishes French Names to distinguish them, because they are known by those names; And where there is great Variety of Dishes, and a large Table to cover, so there must be Variety of Names for them; and it matters not whether they be called by a French, Dutch, or English Name, so they are good, and done with as little Expence as the Dish will allow of."
Glasse was by no means afraid to experiment with exotic ingredients and saw the opportunities global trade represented for the British kitchen, her book anticipating the advent of Nigella Lawson and "fusion cooking", advocating the use of cinnamon, cardamon, cocoa, pistachios, nutmeg, truffles, ambergris, "Naples biscuits" and, er, larks (ideally served with bread sauce).
But she valued economy as much as simplicity, worrying that, "some Things [are] so extravagant, that it would be almost a Shame to make Use of them, when a Dish can be made full as good, or better, without them."
For more on Hannah Glasse and her contribution to the British dining table, you can't do better than read The Independent's own Harry Cockburn, that Wordsworth of food writing, on the "deep puffy hollows and gilded crenellations" of the Yorkshire pudding and her immortal recipe for the "beguiling main course merangue."
Hannah Glasse, the English cookery writer, is most renowned for her cookbook The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy, which was first published in 1747 and in which she provided a recipe for the Yorkshire Pudding.
Known as ‘the first domestic goddess’ and ‘the mother of the modern dinner party, her cookbook gained immediate success soon after publication and has remained in print for almost a century in over 20 editions.
Hannah Glasse coined ‘Yorkshire pudding’, which was previously known as dripping pudding
Today, Yorkshire Puddings have become a staple for any traditional English meal or Sunday roast, but who was Hannah Glasse?
Who was Hannah Glasse?
Born Hannah Allgood in March 1708 in St Andrews, Holborn in London, Hannah went on to marry an Irish soldier called John Glasse in August 1724. After holding positions in the household of the 4th Earl of Donegall at Broomfield in Essex, it seems they lived in London and are thought to have had 11 children.
The historian Madeline Hope Dodds discovered Hannah Glasse as the author of one of the most popular 18th century cookery books, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, in 1938. The book did not reveal its author and the cover used a vague statement that read ‘By a Lady’.
In 1747, the same year that Hannah’s husband John died, the book was published and she went on to partner with her eldest daughter Margaret to become a dressmaker in Tavistock Street in Covent Garden, London.
A few years later, she became bankrupt and she was forced to auction the copyright for The Art of Cookery. The London Gazette revealed that she would be discharged from bankruptcy and later, she and her brother Lancelot repaid £500 that they had borrowed from a Sir Henry Bedingfield.
The Art of Cooking included 972 recipes, including those for puddings, soups and much more
However, Hannah found herself in another spot of financial trouble in 1754 and was consigned to the Marshalsea debtors’ prison before being transferred to Fleet Prison a year later.
Her release date is not known but she is thought to have been freed six months later as records reveal that she registered three shares in The Servants Directory, a new book she had written.
In 1755, Ann Cook published Professed Cookery, which was seen as an attack on Hannah Glasse and a reaction to alleged persecution by Lancelot Allgood. In the same year, she published her third book, The Compleat Confectioner, but this text did not gain the same amount of success as her first.
Hannah died on September 1, 1770 at the age of 62.
Hannah Glass Yorkshire Pudding recipe
In her most famous book The Art of Cooking, Hannah Glasse explains that the book was intended as a guide for servants. ‘I only hope my Book will answer the Ends I intend it for; which is to improve the Servants, and save the Ladies a great deal of Trouble,’ she said.
The Art of Cooking included 972 recipes, including those for puddings, soups, what to serve for Lent and what to give those who are sick. It is also the first English cookbook to make a reference to Indian curry, which presents the impact of the British Empire at the time.
English cookery writer Hannah Glasse invented the Sunday roast staple, the Yorkshire Pudding
However, it is thought that Glasse obtained at least 342 of the recipes from other sources, but nevertheless, the book was popular and she coined the name ‘Yorkshire pudding’, previously known as dripping pudding.
Yorkshire Pudding recipe by Hannah Glasse:
1. Mix a quart of milk, four eggs, a little salt into a thick batter with flour to match a consistency like pancake batter.
2. Ensure you have a good piece of meat cooking and put some dripping in a stew-pan.
3. After it boils, pour in the pudding and let it bake on the fire before turning a plate upside down in the dripping pan so the dripping is not blackened.
4. Put your stew-pan under your meat and let the dripping drop on the pudding so the heat of the fire makes it brown in colour.
5. After your meat is done, drain all the fat from the pudding and set it on the fire to drain it a little.
6. When dry, melt some butter and pour it into a cup for the middle of the pudding.
Hannah Glasse is most renowned for her cookbook The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy
Hannah Glasse Google Doodle
Hannah Glasse was also the subject of the Google Doodle for March 28, 2018, which celebrates the writer on what would have been her 310th birthday.
The culinary Doodle depicts Hannah Glasse retrieving a freshly-cooked batch of her famous Yorkshire puddings from an oven.
